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Robert Louis Stevenson 



AN INLAND VOYAGE 



AND 



TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 

BV 

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

EDITED BY 

JAMES CLOYD BOWMAN, M.A. 

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH 
IN THE IOWA STATE COLLEGE 



3XKC 



ALLYN AND BACON 

Boston Nein gotk Chicago 









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COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY 
JAMES CLOYD BOWMAN 



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J. S. Gushing Co. —Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



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PREFACE 

An Inland Voyage and Travels with a Donkey are to be 
enjoyed rather than studied pedantically. They are to 
be read for the interest of the style and for th3 charm of the 
author's personality. Incidentally, they fascinate through 
the veiled beauty with which they clothe commonplace 
things, and the manner in which they make the most trivial 
experience interesting and human. The editor has worked 
with this in mind. 

After the student has enjoyed the excursions, he may 
then find it valuable to study carefully certain definite 
portions which have especially appealed to him. When 
he has mastered these somewhat, he will find it profitable 
to take some experience of his own, and try to write it 
out as Stevenson would have done. This can do no 
more harm than to show him what a wonderfully clever 
writer Stevenson really is ; and besides," it can hardly fail 
to make him more conscious of a number of possible ways 
of adding neatness to his own expression. 

Full as has been the charm of these journeys in the past, 
they now have an added interest in that the one was 
taken through a part of the same country that is being 
fought over on the Western Front. 

J. C. B. 

May 20, 1918. 



CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION ix 

AN INLAND VOYAGE 

Dedication . . . . . . . . . xxxi 

Author's Preface xxxiii 

Text » . 1-151 

Notes 153 

TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 

Dedication iii 

Text 1-133 

Notes 135 



MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 



Stevenson . . . ■ . 

Map oi An Inland Voyage 

The Cathedral at Antwerp 

The Town Hall at Noyon 

The Refectory of Noyon Cathedral 

The Cathedral at Noyon . 

The Town Hall at Compiegne . 

Map of Travels with a Donkey . 

General View of Le Puy . 

The Abbey of Mount St. Michael at 

Mount St. Michael at Le Puy 

Refectory of the Abbey of Mount St 

The Market Place at Le Puy . 



Le Puy 



Michael 



Frontispiece 

PAGE 

facing I 



facing 



2 

33 
6i 



• 93 
facing I02 
facing I 



facing 



3 

22 

55 

77 

III 



INTRODUCTION 

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

I 

Biographical Sketch 

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh, 
Scotland, on November 13, 1850. On his father's side 
he was descended from a family of distinguished light- 
house engineers ; his father, his grandfather, and his great- 
grandfather, were not alone builders of the best lighthouses 
of the North ; their inventions and improvements were 
equally noteworthy. From these men Stevenson inherited 
a great love of adventure, a vagabond joy for the sea and 
for the open road. 

His maternal grandfather, Louis Balfour, was a Pro- 
fessor of Moral Philosophy and a Minister. It was in his 
house that Stevenson spent the greater part of his boyhood. 
"Now I often wonder," says Stevenson, "what I inherited 
from this old minister. I must suppose, indeed, that he 
was fond of preaching sermons, and so am I, though I 
never heard it maintained that either of us loved to hear 
them." From his forbears, then, Stevenson received 
a rare blend of personality. 

From his mother, Stevenson inherited a diseased throat 
and weak lungs. These kept him almost constantly in 
the "land of counterpane" during the winter. His nurse, 



X Introduction 

the while, beguiled many tedious hours by reading from 
the Bible and the lives of the old Covenanters. During 
the summer he was encouraged to run out-of-doors, and 
despite his frailty, he proved himself wilder and more 
care-free than any of his companions. 

At the age of eleven his health mended sufficiently so 
that his parents began to prepare him for the University 
of Edinburgh. They planned for him to follow the pro- 
fession of his father. During this period he also read 
widely, and enjoyed especially, Shakespeare, Scott, Bun- 
yan, and The Arabian Nights. 

He entered the University at the age of seventeen, but 
soon discovered that he had neither the scientific mind 
nor the physical endurance to succeed as an engineer. 
When his father took him for a voyage, he found — in- 
stead of being interested in lighthouse construction — 
that his mind was teeming with wonderful romances about 
the coast and islands which they visited. 

Although his father was firm, he finally allowed Steven- 
son to decide upon literature as a career, — but first he 
thought it wise that the son should finish a course in law, 
so that he might, in necessity, have a profession to fall 
back upon. Stevenson submitted to the decision, and 
finally at the age of twenty-five succeeded in passing the 
examinations for admission to the bar, though not until 
he had nearly ruined his health through work and worry. 
It was the father's lack of understanding that led the son 
to the following protest : 

Say not of me that weakly I declined 
The labours of my sires, and fled the sea, 
The towers we founded and the lamps we lit, 
To play at home with paper like a child. 



Introduction xi 

The four years that followed were spent largely in 
travel, and in search for a hospitable climate. He made 
long and frequent visits at Fontainebleau, Barbizon, Grez, 
and Nemours, in intimate association with the colonies of 
artists. Here it was that he first met Mrs. Osborne, his 
future wife. Often he visited the galleries and theatres 
of Paris. During this period, too, he made many of his 
most intimate and lasting friends. 

Among these were Sidney Colvin, his biographer and 
Hterary executor; W. E. Henley, his collaborator in 
dramatic composition ; Mrs. Sitwell, who helped him past 
his religious crisis ; Andrew • Lang, Edmund Gosse, and 
Leslie Stephen, writers and critics all. He also made the 
journeys which are described in ^;^ Inland Voyage and 
Travels with a Donkey. In addition he wrote twenty or 
more articles and essays which appeared in various maga- 
zines. Although it seemed to his parents that he was 
wasting much valuable time in idleness at Siron's Inn, he 
was in reality constantly studying to perfect his style 
of writing and broaden his knowledge of life; gradually 
he was emerging as a man of letters. 

When Stevenson and Mrs. Osborne met in France in 
i,78j0, they loved at first sight. A few months later 
when she returned to her home in California, Stevenson 
determined to follow. Those of his friends in whom he 
confided advised strongly against the proposed journey. 
Knowing his father's temper, he sailed without even 
notifying his parent. He took steerage passage on the 
Devonian, partly to lessen the expense and partly for the 
novelty of the voyage. 

From New York he travelled to California by emigrant 
train. These experiences he later gave the world m An 



xii Introduction 

Amateur Emigrant and Across the Plains. However valu- 
able the literary material thus secured, the hardships of 
such travel were too great for Stevenson's frail constitu- 
tion ; he was all but a dead man when he reached Monte- 
rey. In the mountains above this town he was nursed 
back to life by two generous ranchers. 

It was December, 1879, when he found himself sufficiently 
recovered to go to San Francisco. Here for several months 
he struggled "all alone on forty-five cents a day, and 
sometimes less, with quantities of hard work and many 
heavy thoughts," in an effort to support himself through 
his writing ; but before the end of the winter his health 
broke completely, and he found himself at death's door, 
with a galloping consumption. 

It was then that Mrs. Osborne — now free from her 
husband — heroically came to Stevenson's bedside, and 
nursed him through the crisis. "After a while," he 
wrote, "my spirit got up again in divine frenzy, and has 
since kicked and spurred my vile body forward with great 
emphasis and success." When his father was made aware 
of the son's condition, he cabled him the financial support 
which he had romantically abandoned when he started 
for America. 

In May, 1880, he was married, when, as he says, he was 
"a mere complication of cough and bones, much fitter 
for an emblem of mortality than a bridegroom." With 
his wife and her son, Lloyd, he went up into the hills a 
little way from San Francisco, and lived for a time at a 
deserted mining camp ; this experience he published in 
The Silverado Squatters. In August of the same year he 
sailed from New York with his family, and found his 
parents and his friend, Sidney Colvin, on the wharf at 



Introduction xiii 

Liverpool, happy to meet him. Within a few days the 
good wife had firmly established herself in the esteem and 
affection of Stevenson's parents and friends, and did much 
to reconcile parent and son. 

For the next seven years Stevenson searched in vain 
for a place of residence suitable to his state of health. 
He spent his summers at various places in Scotland and 
England; for his winters, he escaped to sunny France, 
and dwelt at Davos Platz and the Chalet de Solitude at 
Hyeres, where, for a time, he enjoyed almost complete 
happiness. "I have so many things to make life sweet 
to me," he wrote, *'it seems a pity I cannot have that other 
one thing — health. But though you will be angry to 
hear it, I believe for myself, at least, that it is best. I 
believed it all through my worst days, and I am not 
ashamed to profess it now." 

In spite of the blood on his handkerchief and the medi- 
cine bottle at his elbow, his indomitable, optimistic spirit 
upheld him, and he produced the bulk of his best work : — 
Treasure Island, his first widely popular book ; Kidnapped ; 
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the story which finally estab- 
lished his reputation among a large class of his readers; 
and two volumes of verse, A Child's Garden of Verses and 
Underwoods. 

Upon the death of his father in 1887, Stevenson felt 
free to follow the advice of his physician to try a complete 
change of climate. He started with his mother and his 
family for Colorado ; but after landing at New York, it 
was decided to spend the winter at Saranac Lake, in the 
Adirondacks. During the intensely cold season Steven- 
son wrote a number of his best essays, including Pulvis 
et Umbra, began The Master of Ballantrae, and light- 



xiv Introduction 

heartedly planned, for the following summer, a cruise over 
the South Seas. ''The proudest moments of my life," 
he wrote, "have been passed in the stern-sheets of a boat 
with that romantic garment over my shoulders." 

In June, 1888, Stevenson chartered the yacht Casco, 
and with his family, set sail from San Francisco. The 
vessel " ploughed her path of snow across the empty deep, 
far from any hand of help." The salt sea air and the thrill 
of adventure healed, for the time, his wounded body; 
and for nearly three years he wandered up and down the 
ocean, visiting all the important groups of islands in the 
Eastern and Central Pacific, and making a number of long 
stops at the Hawaiian Islands, the Gilbert Islands, Tahiti, 
and the Samoan Islands. 

Everywhere his kindly tolerance toward the traditions 
and customs of the half-civilized peoples removed the 
barriers which they generally raised against white men, 
and brought him into intimate contact with the various 
chiefs. He proved himself so entirely human that wher- 
ever he went he made friends with everybody. During 
this period he completed The Master of Ballantrae, com- 
posed two ballads based on the legends of the islanders, 
and wrote The Bottle Imp. The experiences of these years 
are preserved in his various letters and in The South Seas. 

During his roving of the ocean, Stevenson became con- 
vinced that the most hospitable climate in the world for 
him was to be found in the South Seas. In 1890 he pur- 
chased four hundred acres of land in Upolu, one of the 
Samoan Islands. Here, after two futile efforts to visit 
Scotland, he established himself, at the cost of much 
labor, upon his estate, which he named Vailima (Five 
Rivers). 



Introduction xv 

His influence rapidly spread beyond his own household, 
and soon the natives were consulting him about every- 
thing pertaining to their lives. In time, he was naturally 
drawn into the local politics. He became convinced 
that the white officials appointed to rule over the natives 
were incompetent. After many futile attempts to im- 
prove matters, he finally published A Footnote to History. 
This was such a stinging protest against existing conditions 
that it resulted in the recall of two of the officials, and 
Stevenson had cause to fear for a time that it would lead 
to his being deported. When he had finally wiped his 
hands of the affair, he wrote a friend: "I used to think 
meanly of the plumber; but how he shines beside the 
poHtician." 

In addition to building his house and clearing his land, 
and to helping the natives in many ways, he found time to 
work continually at his writing. In his enthusiasm, he 
felt that "there was never any man had so many irons in 
the fire." He wrote The Beach of Felesa, David Balfour, 
and Ebh Tide, as well as the Vailima Letters, during this 
period. 

For a time during the summer of 1894 Stevenson felt de- 
pressed ; he wondered if he had not exhausted his vein and 
completely worked himself out. He owned that he had 
''overworked bitterly." He felt more clearly, with each 
fresh attempt, that the best he could write was "ditch 
water." He even feared that he might again become a 
helpless invalid. Against this idea he rebelled: "I wish 
to die in my boots ; no more land of counterpane for me. 
To be drowned, to be shot, to be thrown from a horse — 
ay, to be hanged rather than pass again through that slow 
dissolution." 



XVI Introduction 

Then suddenly there was a return of his old buoyant 
energy. He had got started on Weir of Hermiston; and 
in his enthusiasm had forgotten everything else. "It's 
so good that it frightens me," he is reported to have ex- 
claimed. He felt that this, after all, was the best work 
that he had ever done. He was convinced, "sick and 
well, I have had a splendid life of it, grudge nothing, regret 
very little . . . take it all over, I would hardly change 
with any man of my time." 

Without knowing it, he was to have his wish fulfilled. 
During the morning of December 3, 1894, he had worked 
hard, as usual, on Hermiston. During the evening while 
he was gayly conversing with his wife in an attempt to 
rouse her from the presentiment that some calamity was 
about to fall, he was suddenly stricken, and died within 
a few hours without regaining consciousness. The faith- 
ful natives insisted on surrounding the body with a silent 
guard during the long watches of the night and on bearing 
their Tusitala (Teller of Tales) several miles upon their 
shoulders to the top of the cliff overlooking the wild, rest- 
less sea. There, far from his cherished native land, far 
from the graves of his fathers, they buried him in love. 

n 

The Charm of the Man 

The marked quality of Stevenson's personality is charm. 
It is generally admitted that he is one of the most attrac- 
tive of all literary figures. That he possesses the secret 
of charm is easily felt ; but, like beauty, this is almost im- 
possible to define. Either an author has it or he does not, 
and that's the end of the matter for most readers. With 



Introduction xvii 

Stevenson, however, a number of the individual traits 
which contribute to the effect are easily discerned. 

Stevenson is one of the most companionable of authors. 
His chief motive is autobiographical. With the seeming 
genial egotism of a child, he admits the reader to the inti- 
macies of his soul, and relates his motives, his tastes, his 
opinions, his faults. He chats so pleasantly about the 
people he meets, the books he reads, even the methods he 
employs in accomplishing his effects in writing, that the 
reader soon feels on the inmost terms of friendship with 
him. And yet all without the trace of vanity. The 
reader is so captivated that soon he finds himself turning 
the pages of the travels and the essays again and again, 
with the feeling that these personal secrets are intended 
alone for him. This quality is so marked in Stevenson 
that many have felt as does Henley : " The man himself is 
so much greater than even the best of his works." 

Stevenson was a wanderer from his birth. "I travel 
not to go anywhere," he says, "but to go." Remaining 
long in any one place "tells on my old gypsy nature ; like 
a violin hung up, I begin to lose what music there is in me ; 
and with the music, I do not know what besides, or do not 
know what to call it, but something radically part of life, 
a rhythm, perhaps, in one's old and brutally overridden 
nerves, or perhaps a kind of variety of blood that the 
heart has come to look for." This trait kept alive in 
Stevenson a boyish craving for adventure: "He ran to 
em^brace life like a lover." This it is in him which gives 
voice to the finest melody he uttered : 

Under the wide and starry sky, 
Dig the grave and let me lie ; 
Glad did I live and gladly die, 
And I laid me down with a will. 



xviii Introduction 

This be the verse you grave for me : 
Here he lies where he longed to be; 
Home is the sailor, home from the sea, 
And the hunter home from the hill. 

It is this ceaseless struggle for adventure, this very 
masculine vigor, this restless romance, which keeps his 
soul constantly alert and young, and which many con- 
sider in him the greatest quality of all. 

In his wanderings, it is the out-of-doors — the moun- 
tains, the valleys, the rivers, the ocean — not the city — 
for which Stevenson hankers. ''To wash in one of God's 
rivers in the open air" is a tonic for soul and body. He 
is never so healthy as when tramping the hills or sailing the 
seas. Not alone is it nature that takes him afield ; it is 
the untrammelled, wild, natural, masculine life of the 
valleys and the mountains, and especially of the ocean 
that appeals to him. For me, he says "not the shoddy 
sham of cities, clubs, and colleges, but the world where 
men still live a man's life." And again : ''God knows I 
don't care who I chum with ; perhaps I like sailors best ; 
but to go round and sue and sneak to keep a crowd to- 
gether — never." The wish expressed in his Envoy is 
not alone for others ; it is his desire for himself : 

A living river by the door, 
A nightingale in the sycamore. 

Stevenson never grew up ; his wonder and imagination, 
his buoyant simplicity and curiosity, are those of a child. 
He retains, in such extraordinary freshness, the memory 
of himself as a child that he has but to wink one eye in 
order to transform himself into the lad of his dreams. 
When he is too sick or too exhausted to work, he drags 



Introduction xix 

his ailing body into the unused attic, and there with Lloyd 
Osborne plays unfagged, for hours at a time, a boyish game 
of war. 

To him life is ever fresh. He is never bored with the 
monotony of existence. Every day he jumps out of his 
trundle bed afresh to gaze upon the wonderful world. He 
has an interest in everything and in everybody. Bohe- 
mian and open-minded, with no animosity against those 
who oppose him, he is constantly a learner. Boy and 
man, he often plays the truant, and often seems wasting 
himself in idleness, because he is intently studying things 
about him. "Do you think I have an empty life?" he 
writes from Vailima, "or that a man jogging to his club 
has so much to interest and amuse him?" 

There is, too, a sort of uncanny, haunting presence that 
surrounds him ; it is as if he has, under the magic of his 
wand, an invisible, winged-footed Ariel to do his bidding. 
This is the quality which makes many of his stories, such 
as Thrawn Janet and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, haunting, 
unforgettable memories. Truly he is, as Barrie has said, 
"a spirit of boyhood tugging at the skirts of this old world 
of ours and compelUng it to come back and play." 

In spite of constitutional weakness and chronic pain, 
Stevenson displayed the courage and indomitable will 
that has endeared him to the whole world. In this respect 
he is not unlike Scott. In spite of the complicated miseries 
that surround him, " up a high hill he heaves a huge round 
stone." Although often "groggy afoot and vague in the 
head," although incapacitated by scrivener's cramp, he 
despairs not. When others would have slighted their 
work, he toils rigorously, and ceases not until he has pro- 
duced the exact effect he desires. 



XX Introduction 

Whatever the cost, he maintains his ideal: "Every 
piece of work which is not as good as you can make it, 
which you have palmed off, imperfect, meagrely thought, 
niggardly in execution, upon mankind who is your pay- 
master on parole and in a sense your pupil, every hasty or 
slovenly or untrue performance, should rise up against 
you in the court of your own heart and condemn you for a 
thief." And not only did Stevenson work, but he smiled. 
Instead of airing his troubles, he converses charmingly of 
his pleasures. He has the rare capacity of making others 
feel as he feels : 

The world is so full of a number of things, 
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings. 

Stevenson is fundamentally religious : this does not 
mean that he holds to any narrow creed, for he does not. 
*'I believe in the ultimate decency of things," he says, 
"ay, and if I woke in hell, I should still believe it." In 
spirit, he never gets very far away from the Puritan influ- 
ence of his childhood and youth. The voice of " Cummie," 
his faithful nurse, rings in his ears to the end: "We are 
all nobly born ; fortunate those who know it ; blessed those 
who remember." 

This influence keeps his mind wholesome, sweet, and 
clean. Witness one of his household prayers for use at 
Vailima: "At morning. The day returns and brings us 
the petty round of irritating concerns and duties. Help 
us to play the man, help us to perform them with laughter 
and kind faces, let cheerfulness abound with industry. 
Give us to go blithely on our business all this day, bring us 
to our resting beds weary and content and undishonored, 
and grant us in the end the gift of sleep." About him there 



Introduction xxi 

is " no flurry, no high words, ho long faces ; only hard work 
and honest thought." He makes his practice a reflection 
of his philosophy ; in his creed as in his life he is always 
the soldier and the gentleman. He purges the mind 
and sets the feet upon the honest, manly journey. 

The charm of Stevenson's personality carries over into 
his style. There is an unusual harmony between the 
man and his books. In grace, appeal, and melody, his 
style is practically perfect. "I have one feather in my 
cap," he says, ''and that is I am not a sloven." During 
his formative years he associated intimately with the genre 
painters of France, and formed the habit of studying his 
words as the artist studies his colors. He loves the strik- 
ing epithet and the harmonious sentence. He is the born 
artist and knows how to mingle the rhythm with the sound 
in an infinitely varied and irresistible pattern. 

"Too many of us," he counsels, "read by the eye, but 
the man who means to write, must, whether he articulates 
or not, read everything by the ear. In short, as a musician 
reads score and can hear harmony, so the Hterary man, 
even while skimming with the eye, must be able to hear all 
the uttered words." His love of style for its own sake, 
together with his artistic sensitiveness and ceaseless 
labor, produces a beauty of rhythm and sound, an avoid- 
ance of artifice, and a perfect concord between sound and 
sense. Yes, and there runs like a golden thread through all 
that he writes a freshness and a masculine vigor which is 
unmistakable. Withal, as in his personality, there is an 
exquisite blending of pathos and humor, melody and 
wisdom. 

But one must end somewhere in this enumeration, 
although not half through dissecting the motley person- 



xxii Introduction 

ality. There remains still the man of the world, the ob- 
solete soldier of fortune, the whimsical child, the critic. 
But at whatever length one continues, one must feel that 
one has failed to give any definite conception of the charm 
which must be felt through reading the author, if it is to 
be appreciated. It is all too much like tearing a bit of 
protoplasm into its elements, and then expecting the 
nitrogen and the oxygen and the hydrogen to have life. 
After all, is it not in the infinitely complex blending of all 
these qualities that the charm of Stevenson really exists ? 
Perhaps his friend Henley has come nearest expressing this : 

Thin-legged, thin-chested, sUght unspeakably. 

Neat-footed and weak-fingered : in his face — 

Lean, large-boned, curved of beak, and touched with race, 

Bold-lipped, rich-tinted, mutable as the sea, 

The brown eyes radiant with vivacity — 

There shone a brilliant and romantic grace, 

A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace 

Of passion, impudence, and energy. 

Valiant in velvet, light in ragged luck, 

Most vain, most generous, sternly critical, 

Buffoon and poet, lover and sensualist ; 

A deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck, 

Much Antony, of Hamlet most of all. 

And something of the Shorter Catechist. 



Ill 

An Inland Voyage and Travels with a Donkey 

It is the companionable Stevenson that one accompanies 
in An Inland Voyage and Travels with a Donkey. His 
mind is as open and as fresh as that of a child. He is un- 
afraid and confiding. He does not attempt to force theories 



Introduction xxiii 

upon one nor to slap one constantly with cocksure convic- 
tions : he simply allows his mind to take color from each 
passing sight and sound along the way ; and he is so sur- 
charged with wit and pathos, insight and wisdom, and is so 
cheerful and natural about it all, that one cannot help 
being captivated. The grace and harmony of the expres- 
sion is but a small part of the potent charm ; the larger 
part lies in the strangeness and picturesqueness with 
which every commonplace thing is enveloped, and in the 
revelation that — if one has but the eye to see it — every- 
thing in the world is flooded with artistry and beauty. 

In An Inland Voyage Stevenson gives the log of a canoe- 
ing journey which he took during September, 1876, from 
Antwerp, through Belgium and northern France, to Pon- 
toise, a town on the Oise near Paris. On this voyage he 
was accompanied by his old friend, Walter Simpson, with 
whom he had previously taken many and varied excur- 
sions. The voyage lasted for seventeen days. "I have 
been wet through nearly every day of travel since the 
second (inclusive) ; besides this, I have had to fight 
against pretty mouldy health ; so that, on the whole, the 
essayist and reviewer has shown, I think, some pluck." 

Yet in the report he gives us, we have but a veiled sug- 
gestion here and there of the disagreeable weather and the 
poor health. One feels instead that "he who is of the 
brotherhood does not voyage in quest of the picturesque 
but of certain jolly humors — of the hope and spirit with 
which the march begins at morning, and the peace and 
spiritual reflections of the evening's rest." From almost 
every page there radiates the white sunlight of a joyous 
spirit. 

Travels with a Donkey is Stevenson's log of his walking 



xxlv Introduction 

journey over the Cevennes in southeastern France. He 
left Le Monastier the last week of September, 1878, and 
after spending twelve days in the company of Modestine, 
reached Alais, on the Gardon. His journey lay in the 
present departments of Ardeche and Lozere, though Ste- 
venson preferred to use the names of the corresponding old 
districts, Viveras and Gevaudan. The general direction of 
his foot-steps lay toward the south, though his winding, 
irregular way often took him toward almost every other 
point of the compass. He pays more attention than in 
the Voyage to the people he meets, and his eyes turn oftener 
to the stars. 

In each of the stories he reverts again and again to his 
joy in personal freedom. He is sure he would ''rather be 
a bargee than occupy any position under heaven that re- 
quires attendance at an office." In each there is much of 
the feeling and philosophy of the gypsy and the vagabond. 

IV 

Bibliography 

List of Stevenson's Books: 

1878. An Inland Voyage 

1879. Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes 

1 881. Virginibus Puerisque, and Other Papers 

1882. Familiar Studies of Men and Books 

1882. New Arabian Nights 

1883. Treasure Island 
1885. Prince Otto 

1885. A Child's Garden of Verses 

1885. The Dynamiter: More New Arabian Nights 



Introduction xxv 

1886. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 

1886. Kidnapped: being Memoirs of the Adven- 

tures of David Balfour in the Year 1751 

1887. The Merry Men, and Other Tales 

1887. Memories and Portraits 

1888. The Black Arrow 

1889. The Master of Ballantrae 

1889. The Wrong Box 

1890. Father Damien : an Open Letter to the Rev. 

Dr. Hyde of Honolulu 
1892. Across the Plains, with Other Memories and 
Essays 

1892. The Wrecker 

1893. Island Nights' Entertainments 

1893. Catriona: a Sequel to Kidnapped (Pub- 

lished in America under the title, David 
Balfour) 

1894. The Ebb Tide 

1895. Vailima Letters 

1896. Weir of Hermiston 

1897. St. Ives: being the Adventures of a French 

Prisoner in England 
1899. Letters to his Family and Friends, selected 
and edited by Sidney Colvin, 2 vols. 

Editions of Stevenson's Works: 

The Thistle Edition. This edition in twenty-six 
volumes contains the author's Life by Balfour, 
and his Letters by Colvin. 

The Biographical Edition. This edition in twenty- 
seven volumes contains instructive and entertain- 
ing prefaces by Mrs. Stevenson. 



xxvi Introduction 

Biographies of Stevenson: 
Graham Balfour. 

Life of Robert Louis Stevenson. London, 1901, 
This is the authoritative life of Stevenson. 
Jolm Alexander Hammerton. 

Stevensonia; an Anecdotal Life and Appreciation. 
Edinburgh (Second Edition), 1907. A collec- 
tion of interesting and valuable materials from 
various sources. 
Richard Ashley Rice. 

Robert Louis Stevenson; How to Know Him. In- 
dianapolis, 1 91 6. A recent popular biography 
in an interesting series. 

Bibliographies of Stevenson: 
W. F. Prideaux. 

Bibliography of the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson. 
Revised edition, edited and supplemented by 
Mrs. Luther S. Livingston. London, 19 18. 
John Herbert Slater. 

Robert Louis Stevenson ; a Bibliography of His Com- 
plete Works. 1914. 

Critical Essays: 
Walter Raleigh. 

Robert Louis Stevenson. 1895. 
Arthur Quiller-Couch. 

Robert Louis Stevenson in Adventures in Criticism. 
1896. 
William Lyon Phelps. 

Robert Louis Stevenson in Essays on Modern Novel- 
ists. 1 9 10. 



Introduction xxvii 

A. Hammerton. 

In the Track of R. L. Stevenson. 1907. The author 
follows the course over which Stevenson jour- 
neyed in An Inland Voyage and Travels with a 
Donkey. He discourses pleasantly about the 
country and the people, and presents numerous 
photographs. These illustrations are valuable 
in that they show many of the exact scenes 
described by Stevenson. 



AN INLAND VOYAGE 

BY 

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

EDITED FOR SCHOOL USE, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 

JAMES CLOYD BOWMAN, M.A. 

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN 
THE IOWA STATE COLLEGE 



3i«=;< 



ALLYN AND BACON 
Boston Neil) gork £f)icago 



1 



TO 
SIR WALTER GRINDLAY SIMPSON, Bart. 

My dear Cigarette, 

It was enough that you should have shared so Hberally in the rams 
and portages of our voyage; that you should have had so hard a 
battle to recover the derelict A rethusa on the flooded Oise ; and that 
you should thenceforth have piloted a mere wreck of mankind to 
Origny Sainte-Benoite and a supper so eagerly desired. It was per- 
haps more than enough, as you once somewhat piteously complained, 
that I should have set down all the strong language to you, and kept 
the appropriate reflexions for myself. I could not in decency expose 
you to share the disgrace of another and more public shipwreck. But 
now that this voyage of ours is going into a cheap edition, that peril, 
we shall hope, is at an end, and I may put your name on the burgee. 

But I cannot pause till I have lamented the fate of our two ships. 
That, sir, was not a fortunate day when we projected the possession 
of a canal barge ; it was not a fortunate day when we shared our day- 
dream with the most hopeful of day-dreamers. For a while, indeed, 
the world looked smilingly. The barge was procured and christened, 
and as the Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne, lay for some months, 
the admired of all admirers, in a pleasant river and under the walls 
of an ancient town. M, Mattras, the accomplished carpenter of 
Moret, had made her a centre of emulous labour ; and you will not 
have forgotten the amount of sweet champagne consumed in the inn 
at the bridge end, to give zeal to the workmen and speed to the work. 
On the financial aspect, I would not willingly dwell. The Eleven 
Thousand Virgins of Cologne rotted in the stream where she was 
beautified. She felt not the impulse of the breeze; she was never 
harnessed to the patient track-horse. And when at length she was 
sold, by the indignant carpenter of Moret, there were sold along with 
her the A rethusa and the Cigarette, she of cedar, she, as we knew so 
keenly on a portage, of solid-hearted English oak. Now these his- 
toric vessels fly the tricolor and are known by new and alien names. 

R. L. S. 
xxxi 



PREFACE 

To equip so small a book with a preface is, I am half 
afraid, to sin against proportion. But a preface is more 
than an author can resist, for it is the reward of his labours. 
When the foundation stone is laid, the architect appears 
with his plans, and struts for an hour before the public 
eye. So with the writer in his preface : he may have never 
a word to say, but he must show himself for a moment in 
the portico, hat in hand, and with an urbane demeanour. 

It is best, in such circumstance, to represent a delicate 
shade of manner between humility and superiority : as 
if the book had been written by some one else, and you had 
merely run over it and inserted what was good. But for 
my part I have not yet learned the trick to that perfec- 
tion ; I am not yet able to dissemble the warmth of my 
sentiments towards a reader; and if I meet him on the 
threshold, it is to invite him in with country cordiality. 

To say truth, I had no sooner finished reading this little 
book in proof than I was seized upon by a distressing ap- 
prehension. 

It occurred to me that I might not only be the first to 
read these pages, but the last as well ; that I might have 
pioneered this very smiling tract of country all in vain, 
and find not a soul to follow in my steps. The more I 
thought, the more I disliked the notion ; until the distaste 
grew into a sort of panic terror, and I rushed into this 
Preface, which is no more than an advertisement for 
readers. 



xxxiv Preface 

What am I to say for my book? Caleb and Joshua 
brought back from Palestine a formidable bunch of grapes ; 
alas ! my book produces naught so nourishing ; and for 
the matter of that, we live in an age when people prefer 
a definition to any quantity of fruit. 

I wonder, would a negative be found enticing? for, from 
the negative point of view, I flatter myself this volume has 
a certain stamp. Although it runs to considerably up- 
wards of two hundred pages, it contains not a single ref- 
erence to the imbecility of God's universe, nor so much as 
a single hint that I could have made a better one myself, 
— I really do not know where my head can have been. I 
seemed to have forgotten all that makes it glorious to be 
man. 'T is an omission that renders the book philosoph- 
ically unimportant; but I am in hopes the eccentricity 
may please in frivolous circles. 

To the friend who accompanied me I owe many thanks 
already, indeed I wish I owed him nothing else; but at 
this moment I feel towards him an almost exaggerated 
tenderness. He, at least, will become my reader — if it 
were only to follow his own travels alongside of mine. 

R. L. S. 



CONTENTS 



Antwerp to Boom . . . .' 

On the Willebroek Canal . 
The Royal Sport Nautiqite 

At Maubeuge 

On the Sambre Canalised : to Quartes 
Pont-sur-Sambre : — 

We are Pedlars .... 

The Travelling Merchant , 
On the Sambre Canalised : to Landrecies 

At Landrecies 

Sambre and Oise Canal: Canal Boats 
The Oise in Flood 
Origny Sainte-Benoite : — 

A By-Day . . . . 

The Company at Table 
Down the Oise : to Moy 
La Fere of Cursed Memory 
Down the Oise : through the Golden Valley 
Noyon Cathedral .... 

Down the Oise : to Compiegne . 

At Compiegne 

Changed Times 

Down the Oise : Church Interiors . 

Precy and the Marionettes 

Back to the World .... 



Epilogue to 
Notes 



An Inland Voyage' 



^J^9^ 




7 % 

-Moy 



Nov 



..A^Piinprez 



Compiegi 



il^.rfO'^Verberie 

Pont Sainte Maxence 
Precy o /\' 



Lisrv^ 



. A ^ Pontoise«-'AC L'Isle Adam 




"jlfti- 



Chalons- 
sur-Marue 



Fontui^iebleauo' 



SCALE OF MILES 



C 15 20 30 40 50 



Map of An Inland Voyage 



AN INLAND VOYAGE 



ANTWERP TO BOOM 

We made a great stir in Antwerp Docks. A stevedore 
and a lot of dock porters took up the two canoes, and 
ran with them for the sUp. A crowd of children followed 
cheering. The Cigarette went off in a splash and a bubble 
of small breaking water. Next moment the Arethusa was 
after her. A steamer was coming down, men on the 
paddle-box shouted hoarse warnings, the stevedore and 
his porters were bawling from the quay. But in a stroke 
or two the canoes were away out in the middle of the 
Scheldt, and all steamers, and stevedores, and other 
'longshore vanities were left behind. 

The sun shone brightly ; the tide was making — four 
jolly miles an hour; the wind blew steadily, with occa- 
sional squalls. For my part, I had never been in a canoe 
under sail in my life ; and my first experiment out in the 
middle of this big river was not made without some trepi- 
dation. What would happen when the wind first caught 
my little canvas? I suppose it was almost as trying a 
venture into the regions of the unknown as to publish a 
first book, or to marry. But my doubts were not of long 
duration ; and in five minutes you will not be surprised 
to learn that I had tied my sheet. 

I own I was a little struck by this circumstance myself ; 
of course, in company with the rest of my fellow-men, I 



2 An Inland Voyage 

had always tied the sheet in a saiUng-boat; but in so 
Uttle and crank a concern as a canoe, and with these 
charging squalls, I was not prepared to find myself follow 
the same principle; and it inspired me with some con- 
temptuous views of our regard for life. It is certainly 
easier to smoke with the sheet fastened ; but I had never 
before weighed a comfortable pipe of tobacco against an 
obvious risk, and gravely elected for the comfortable 
pipe. It is a commonplace, that we cannot answer for 
ourselves before we have been tried. But it is not so 
common a reflection, and surely more consoling that 
we usually find ourselves a great deal braver and better 
than we thought. I believe this is every one's experi- 
ence : but an apprehension that they may belie themselves 
in the future prevents mankind from trumpeting this 
cheerful sentiment abroad. I wish sincerely, for it would 
have saved me much trouble, there had been some one 
to put me in a good heart about life when I was younger ; 
to tell me how dangers are most portentous on a distant 
sight ; and how the good in a man's spirit will not suffer 
itself to be overlaid, and rarely or never deserts him in 
the hour of need. But we are all for tootling on the 
sentimental flute in literature ; and not a man among us 
will go to the head of the march to sound the heady 
drums. 

It was agreeable upon the river. A barge or two went 
past laden with hay. Reeds and willows bordered the 
stream ; and cattle and grey, venerable horses came and 
hung their mild heads over the embankment. Here and 
there was a pleasant village among trees, with a noisy 
shipping-yard; here and there a villa in a lawn. The 
wind served us well up the Scheldt and thereafter up the 




i-'l":....ii!!:!:HirM 



The Cathedral at Antwerp 



Antwerp to Boom 3 

Rupel ; and we were running pretty free when we began 
to sight the brickyards of Boom, lying for a long way on 
the right bank of the river. The left bank was still green 
and pastoral, with alleys of trees along the embankment, 
and here and there a flight of steps to serve a ferry, where 
perhaps there sat a woman with her elbows on her knees, 
or an old gentleman with a staff and silver spectacles. 
But Boom and its brickyards grew smokier and shabbier 
with every minute ; until a great church with a clock, and 
a wooden bridge over the river, indicated the central 
quarters of the town. 

Boom is not a nice place, and is only remarkable for 
one thing : that the majority of the inhabitants have a 
private opinion that they can speak English, which is 
not justified by fact. This gave a kind of haziness to our 
intercourse. As for the Hotel de la Navigation, I think 
it is the worst feature of the place. It boasts of a sanded 
parlour, with a bar at one end, looking on the street; 
and another sanded parlour, darker and colder, with an 
empty bird-cage and a tricolor subscription box byway 
of sole adornment, where we made shift to dine in the 
company of three uncommunicative engineer apprentices 
and a silent bagman. Xhe food, as usual in Belgium, was 
of a nondescript occasional character; indeed I have 
never been able to detect anything in the nature of a meal 
among this pleasing people ; they seem to peck and trifle 
with viands all day long in an amateur spirit : tentatively 
French, truly German, and somehow falling between the 
two. 

The empty bird-cage, swept and garnished, and with 
no trace of the old piping favourite, save where two wires 
had been pushed apart to hold its lump of sugar, carried 



4 An Inland Voyage 

with it a sort of graveyard cheer. The engineer appren- 
tices would have nothing to say to us, nor indeed to the 
bagman; but talked low and sparingly to one another, 
or raked us in the gaslight with a gleam of spectacles. 
For though handsome lads, they were all (in the Scotch 
phrase) barnacled. 

There was an English maid in the hotel, who had been 
long enough out of England to pick up all sorts of funny 
foreign idioms, and all sorts of curious foreign ways, which 
need not here be specified. She spoke to us very flu- 
ently in her jargon, asked us information as to the manners 
of the present day in England, and obligingly corrected 
us when we attempted to answer. But as we were deal- 
ing with a woman, perhaps our information was not so 
much thrown away as it appeared. The sex likes to 
pick up knowledge and yet preserve its superiority. It 
is good policy, and almost necessary in the circumstances. 
If a man finds a woman admires him, were it only for his 
acquaintance with geography, he will begin at once to 
build upon the admiration. It is only by unintermittent 
snubbing that the pretty ones can keep us in our place. 
Men, as Miss Howe or Miss Harlowe would have said, 
"are such encroachers.'^ For my part, I am body and 
soul with the women ; and after a well-married couple, 
there is nothing so beautiful in the world as the myth of 
the divine huntress. It is no use for a man to take to 
the woods ; we know him ; Anthony tried the same thing 
long ago, and had a pitiful time of it by all accounts. But 
there is this about some women, which overtops the best 
gymnosophist among men, that they suffice to themselves, 
and can walk in a high and cold zone without the coun- 
tenance of any trousered being. I declare, although the 



Antwerp to Boom 5 

reverse of a professed ascetic, I am more obliged to 
women for this ideal than I should be to the majority of 
them, or indeed to any but one, for a spontaneous kiss. 
There is nothing so encouraging as the spectacle of self- 
sufficiency. And when I think of the slim and lovely 
maidens, running the woods all night to the note of 
Diana's horn ; moving among the old oaks, as fancy-free 
as they ; things of the forest and the starlight, not touched 
by the commotion of man's hot and turbid life — although 
there are plenty other ideals that I should prefer — I 
find my heart beat at the thought of this one. 'Tis 
to fail in life, but to fail with what a grace ! That is not 
lost which is not regretted. And where — here slips out 
the male — where would be much of the glory of inspiring 
love, if there were no contempt to overcome? 



ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL 

Next morning, when we set forth on the Willebroek 
Canal, the rain began heavy and chill. The water of 
the canal stood at about the drinking temperature of 
tea; and under this cold aspersion, the surface was 
covered with steam. The exhilaration of departure, and 
the easy motion of the boats under each stroke of the 
paddles, supported us through this misfortune while it 
lasted ; and when the cloud passed and the sun came out 
again, our spirits went up above the range of stay-at- 
home humours. A good breeze rustled and shivered in 
the rows of trees that bordered the canal. The leaves 
flickered in and out of the light in tumultuous masses. 
It seemed sailing weather to eye and ear ; but down be- 
tween the banks, the wind reached us only in faint and 
desultory puffs. There was hardly enough to steer by. 
Progress was intermittent and unsatisfactory. A jocular 
person, of marine antecedents, hailed us from the tow- 
path with a ^^C'est vite, mats c^est long.^^ 

The canal was busy enough. Every now and then 
we met or overtook a long string of boats, with great 
green tillers ; high sterns with a window on either side 
of the rudder, and perhaps a jug or a flower-pot in one 
of the windows ; a dingy following behind ; a woman 
busied about the day's dinner, and a handful of children. 
These barges were all tied one behind the other with tow- 
ropes, to the number of twenty-five or thirty; and the 

6 



On the Willebroek Canal 7 

line was headed and kept in motion by a steamer of 
strange construction. It had neither paddlewheel nor 
screw; but by some gear not rightly comprehensible to 
the unmechanical mind, it fetched up over its bow a small 
bright chain which lay along the bottom of the canal, 
and paying it out again over the stern, dragged itself 
forward, link by link, with its whole retinue of loaded 
scows. Until one had found out the key to the enigma, 
there was something solemn and uncomfortable in the 
progress of one of these trains, as it moved gently along 
the water with nothing to mark its advance but an eddy 
alongside dying away into the wake. 

Of all the creatures of commercial enterprise, a canal 
barge is by far the most delightful to consider. It may 
spread its sails, and then you see it sailing high above the 
tree-tops and the wind-mill, sailing on the aqueduct, 
sailing through the green corn-lands : the most picturesque 
of things amphibious. Or the horse plods along at a foot- 
pace as if there were no such thing as business in the 
world ; and the man dreaming at the tiller sees the same 
spire on the horizon all day long. It is a mystery how 
things ever get to their destination at this rate; and to 
see the barges waiting their turn at a lock, affords a fine 
lesson of how easily the world may be taken. There 
should be many contented spirits on board, for such a life 
is both to travel and to stay at home. 

The chimney smokes for dinner as you go along ; the 
banks of the canal slowly unroll their scenery to con- 
templative eyes ; the barge floats by great forests and 
through great cities with their public buildings and their 
lamps at night ; and for the bargee, in his floating home, 
''travelling abed," it is merely as if he were listening to 



8 An Inland Voyage 

another man's story or turning the leaves of a picture 
book in which he had no concern. He may take his 
afternoon walk in some foreign country on the banks of 
the canal, and then come home to dinner at his own 
fireside. 

There is not enough exercise in such a life for any high 
measure of health ; but a high measure of health is ohly 
necessary for unhealthy people. The slug of a fellow, 
who is never ill nor well, has a quiet time of it in life, and 
dies all the easier. 

I am sure I would rather be a bargee than occupy 
any position under Heaven that required attendance 
at an office. There are few callings, I should say, where 
a man gives up less of his liberty in return for regular 
meals. The bargee is on shipboard ; he is master in his 
own ship ; he can land whenever he will ; he can never 
be kept beating off a lee-shore a whole frosty night when 
the sheets are as hard as iron ; and so far as I can make 
out, time stands as nearly still with him as is compatible 
with the return of bedtime or the dinner-hour. It is not 
easy to see why a bargee should ever die. 

Half-way between Willebroek and Villevorde, in a 
beautiful reach of canal like a squire's avenue, we went 
ashore to lunch. There were two eggs, a junk of bread, 
and a bottle of wine on board the Arethusa; and two 
eggs and an Etna cooking apparatus on board the Ciga- 
rette. The master of the latter boat smashed one of the 
eggs in the course of disembarkation ; but observing 
pleasantly that it might still be cooked a la papier, he 
dropped it into the Etna, in its covering of Flemish news- 
paper. We landed in a blink of fine weather; but we 
had not been two minutes ashore before the wind fresh- 



On the Willebroek Canal 9 

ened into half a gale, and the rain began to patter on our 
shoulders. We sat as close about the Etna as we could. 
The spirits burned with great ostentation; the grass 
caught flame every minute or two, and had to be trodden 
out; and before long there were several burnt fingers of 
the party. But the solid quantity of cookery accom- 
plished was out of proportion with so much display; 
and when we desisted, after two applications of the fire, 
the sound egg was a little more than loo- warm; and 
as for a la papier, it was a cold and sordid fricassee of 
printer's ink and broken eggshell. We made shift to 
roast the other two by putting them close to the burning 
spirits, and that with better success. And then we un- 
corked the bottle of wine, and sat down in a ditch with our 
canoe aprons over our knees. It rained smartly. Dis- 
comfort, when it is honestly uncomfortable and makes 
no nauseous pretensions to the contrary, is a vastly 
humorous business ; and people well steeped and stupefied 
in the open air are in a good vein for laughter. From this 
point of view, even egg a la papier offered by way of 
food may pass muster as a sort of accessory to the fun. 
But this manner of jest, although it may be taken in good 
part, does not invite repetition ; and from that time for- 
ward the Etna voyaged like a gentleman in the locker of 
the Cigarette. 

It is almost unnecessary to mention that when lunch 
was over and we got aboard again and made sail, the 
wind promptly died away. The rest of the journey to 
Villevorde we still spread our canvas to the unfavouring 
air, and with now and then a puff, and now and then a 
spell of paddling, drifted along from lock to lock between 
the orderly trees. 



lo An Inland Voyage 

It was a fine, green, fat landscape, or rather a mere 
green water-lane going on from village to village. Things 
had a settled look, as in places long lived in. Crop- 
headed children spat upon us from the bridges as we went 
below, with a true conservative feeling. But even more 
conservative were the fishermen, intent upon their floats, 
who let us go by without one glance. They perched upon 
sterlings and buttresses and along the slope of the embank- 
ment, gently occupied. They were indifferent like pieces 
of dead nature. They did not move any more than if 
they had been fishing in an old Dutch print. The leaves 
fluttered, the water lapped, but they continued in one 
stay, like so many churches established by law. You 
might have trepanned every one of their innocent heads 
and found no more than so much coiled fishing-line be- 
low their skulls. I do not care for your stalwart fellows 
in india-rubber stockings breasting up mountain torrents 
with a salmon rod ; but I do dearly love the class of man 
who plies his unfruitful art for ever and a day by still 
and depopulated waters. 

At the lock just beyond Villevorde there was a lock 
mistress who spoke French comprehensibly, and told us 
we were still a couple of leagues from Brussels. At the 
same place the rain began again. It fell in straight, 
parallel lines, and the surface of the canal was thrown up 
into an infinity of little crystal fountains. There were 
no beds to be had in the neighbourhood. Nothing for 
it but to lay the sails aside and address ourselves to steady 
paddling in the rain. 

Beautiful country houses, with clocks and long lines 
of shuttered windows, and fine old trees standing in 
groves and avenues, gave a rich and sombre aspect in 



On the Willebroek Canal ii 

the rain and the deepening dusk to the shores of the 
canal. I seem to have seen something of the same effect 
in engravings : opulent landscapes, deserted and over- 
hung with the passage of storm. And throughout we 
had the escort of a hooded cart, which trotted shabbily 
along the tow-path, and kept at an almost uniform dis- 
tance in our wake. 



THE ROYAL SPORT NAUTIQUE 

The rain took off near Laeken. But the sun was 
already down ; the air was chill ; and we had scarcely a 
dry stitch between the pair of us. Nay, now we found 
ourselves near the end of the AUee Verte, and on the very 
threshold of Brussels we were confronted by a serious 
difficulty. The shores were closely lined by canal boats 
waiting their turn at the lock. Nowhere was there any 
convenient landing-place ; nowhere so much as a stable- 
yard to leave the canoes in for the night. We scrambled 
ashore and entered an estaminet where some sorry fellows 
were drinking with the landlord. The landlord was 
pretty round with us ; he knew of no coach-house or 
stable-yard, nothing of the sort ; and seeing we had come 
with no mind to drink, he did not conceal his impatience 
to be rid of us. One of the sorry fellows came to the 
rescue. Somewhere in the corner of the basin there was 
a slip, he informed us, and something else besides, not 
very clearly defined by him, but hopefully construed by 
his hearers. 

Sure enough there was the slip in the corner of the 
basin ; and at the top of it two nice-looking lads in boat- 
ing clothes. The Arethusa addressed himself to these. 
One of them said there would be no difficulty about a 
night's lodging for our boats ; and the other, taking a 
cigarette from his lips, inquired if they were made by 
Searle & Son. The name was quite an introduction. 



The Royal Sport Nautlque 13 

Half-a-dozen other young men came out of a boat-house 
bearing the superscription Royal Sport Nautique, and 
joined in the talk. They were all very polite, voluble, 
and enthusiastic; and their discourse was interlarded 
with English boating-terms, and the names of English 
boat-builders and English clubs. I do not know, to my 
shame, any spot in my native land, where I should have 
been so warmly received by the same number of people. 
We were English boating-men, and the Belgian boating- 
men fell upon our necks. I wonder if French Huguenots 
were as cordially greeted by English Protestants when 
they came across the Channel out of great tribulation. 
But, after all, what religion knits people so closely as 
common sport? 

The canoes were carried into the boat-house; they 
were washed down for us by the club servants, the sails 
were hung out to dry, and everything made as snug and 
tidy as a picture. And in the meanwhile we were led 
upstairs by our new-found brethren, for so more than one 
of them stated the relationship, and made free of their 
lavatory. This one lent us soap, that one a towel, a 
third and fourth helped us to undo our bags. And all 
the time such questions, such assurances of respect and 
sympathy! I declare I never knew what glory was 
before. 

"Yes, yes, the Royal Sport Nautique is the oldest club 
in Belgium." 

"We number two hundred." 

"We" — this is not a substantive speech, but an ab- 
stract of many speeches, the impression left upon my 
mind after a great deal of talk; and very youthful, 
pleasant, natural, and patriotic it seems to me to be — 



14 An Inland Voyage 

''We have gained all races, except those where we were 
cheated by the French." 

"You must leave all your wet things to be dried." 

"O! entre freres I In any boat-house in England we 
should find the same." (I cordially hope they might.) 

"En Angleterre, vous employ ez des sliding-seats, n^est-ce 
pas?'' 

"We are all employed in commerce during the day; 
but in the evening, voyez-vous, nous sonimes serieuxJ' 

These wxre the words. They w^ere all employed over 
the frivolous mercantile concerns of Belgium during the 
day; but in the evening they found some hours for the 
serious concerns of life. I may have a wrong idea of 
wisdom, but I think that was a very wise remark. People 
connected w4th literature and philosophy are busy all 
their days in getting rid of second-hand notions and false 
standards. It is their profession, in the sweat of their 
brows, by dogged thinking, to recover their old fresh view 
of life, and distinguish what they really and originally 
like from what they have only learned to tolerate per- 
force. And these Royal Nautical Sportsmen had the dis- 
tinction still quite legible in their hearts. They had 
still those clean perceptions of what is nice and nasty, 
what is interesting and what is dull, which envious old 
gentlemen refer to as illusions. The nightmare illusion 
of middle age, the bear's hug of custom gradually squeez- 
ing the life out of a man's soul, had not yet begun for 
these happy-star'd young Belgians. They still knew 
that the interest they took in their business was a trifling 
affair compared to their spontaneous, long-suffering 
affection for nautical sports. To know w^hat you prefer, 
instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells 



The Royal Sport Nautlque 15 

you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul aUve. 
Such a man may be generous; he may be honest in 
something more than the commercial sense ; he may love 
his friends with an elective, personal sympathy, and not 
accept them as an adjunct of the station to which he has 
been called. He may be a man, in short, acting on his 
own instincts, keeping in his own shape that God made 
him in ; and not a mere crank in the social enginehouse, 
welded on principles that he does not understand, and 
for purposes that he does not care for. 

For will any one dare to tell me that business is more 
entertaining than fooling among boats? He must have 
never seen a boat, or never seen an office, who says so. 
And for certain the one is a great deal better for the 
health. There should be nothing so much a man's 
business as his amusements. Nothing but money- 
grubbing can be put forward to the contrary ; no one but 

Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell 
From Heaven, 

durst risk a word in answer. It is but a lying cant that 
would represent the merchant and the banker as people 
disinterestedly toiling for mankind, and then most useful 
when they are most absorbed in their transactions; for 
the man is more important than his services. And when 
my Royal Nautical Sportsman shall have so far fallen 
from his hopeful youth that he cannot pluck up an en- 
thusiasm over anything but his ledger, I venture to doubt 
whether he will be near so nice a fellow, and whether he 
would welcome, with so good a grace, a couple of drenched 
Englishmen paddhng into Brussels in the dusk. 

When we had changed our wet clothes and drunk a 



i6 An Inland Voyage 

glass of pale ale to the club's prosperity, one of their 
number escorted us to a hotel. He would not join us at 
our dinner, but he had no objection to a glass of wine. 
Enthusiasm is very wearing ; and I begin to understand 
why prophets were unpopular in Judaea, where they were 
best known. For three stricken hours did this excellent 
young man sit beside us to dilate on boats and boat-races ; 
and before he left, he was kind enough to order our bed- 
room candles. 

We endeavoured now and again to change the sub- 
ject ; but the diversion did not last a moment : the Royal 
Nautical Sportsman bridled, shied, answered the question, 
and then breasted once more into the swelling tide of his 
subject. I call it his subject ; but I think it was he who 
was subjected. The Arethusa, who holds all racing as 
a creature of the devil, found himself in a pitiful dilemma. 
He durst not own his ignorance for the honour of old 
England, and spoke away about English clubs and Eng- 
lish oarsmen whose fame had never before come to his 
ears. Several times, and once, above all, on the ques- 
tion of sliding-seats, he was within an ace of exposure. 
As for the Cigarette, who has rowed races in the heat of 
his blood, but now disowns these slips of his wanton 
youth, his case was still more desperate ; for the Royal 
Nautical proposed that he should take an oar in one of 
their eights on the morrow, to compare the English with 
the Belgian stroke. I could see my friend perspiring in 
his chair whenever that particular topic came up. And 
there was yet another proposal which had the same effect 
on both of us. It appeared that the champion canoeist 
of Europe (as well as most other champions) was a Royal 
Nautical Sportsman. And if we would only wait until 



The Royal Sport Nautique 17 

the Sunday, this infernal paddler would be so condescend- 
ing as to accompany us on our next stage. Neither of 
us had the least desire to drive the coursers of the sun 
against Apollo. 

When the young man was gone, we countermanded our 
candles, and ordered some brandy and water. The great 
billows had gone over our head. The Royal Nautical 
Sportsmen were as nice young fellows as a man would 
wish to see, but they w^ere a trifle too young and a thought 
too nautical for us. We began to see that we were old 
and cynical ; we liked ease and the agreeable rambling 
of the human mind about this and the other subject ; 
we did not want to disgrace our native land by messing 
at eight, or toiling pitifully in the wake of the champion 
canoeist. In short, we had recourse to flight. It seemed 
ungrateful, but we tried to make that good on a card 
loaded with sincere compliments. And indeed it was no 
time for scruples ; we seemed to feel the hot breath of 
the champion on our necks. 



AT MAUBEUGE 

Partly from the terror we had of our good friends the 
Royal Nauticals, partly from the fact that there were no 
fewer than fifty-five locks between Brussels and Char- 
leroi, we concluded that we should travel by train across 
the frontier, boats and all. Fifty-five locks in a day's 
journey was pretty well tantamount to trudging the 
whole distance on foot, with the canoes upon our shoul- 
ders, an object of astonishment to the trees on the canal- 
side, and of honest derision to all right-thinking children. 

To pass the frontier, even in a train, is a difficult matter 
for the Arethusa. He is, somehow or other, a marked 
man for the official eye. Wherever he journeys, there 
are the officers gathered together. Treaties are solemnly 
signed, foreign ministers, ambassadors, and consuls sit 
throned in state from China to Peru, and the union jack 
flutters on all the winds of heaven. Under these safe- 
guards, portly clergymen, school-mistresses, gentlemen 
in grey tweed suits, and all the ruck and rabble of British 
touristry pour unhindered, Murray in hand, over the 
railways of the Continent, and yet the slim person of the 
Arethusa is taken in the meshes, wMe these great fish 
go on their way rejoicing. If he travels without a pass- 
port, he is cast, without any figure about the matter, 
into noisome dungeons: if his papers are in order, he is 
suffered to go his way indeed, but not until he has been 
humiliated by a general incredulity. He is a born British 

i8 



At Maubeuge 19 

subject, yet he has never succeeded in persuading a single 
official of his nationality. He flatters himself he is in- 
different honest ; yet he is rarely known for anything 
better than a spy, and there is no absurd and disreputable 
means of livelihood but has been attributed to him in 
some heat of official or popular distrust. ... 

For the life of me I cannot understand it. I, too, 
have been knolled to church and sat at good men's feasts, 
but I bear no mark of it. I am as strange as a Jack 
Indian to their official spectacles. I might come from 
any part of the globe, it seems, except from where I do. 
My ancestors have laboured in vain, and the glorious 
Constitution cannot protect me in my walks abroad. It is 
a great thing, believe me, to present a good normal type 
of the nation you belong to. 

Nobody else was asked for his papers on the way to 
Maubeuge, but I was ; and although I clung to my rights, 
I had to choose at last between accepting the humiliation 
and being left behind by the train. I was sorry to give 
way, but I wanted to get to Maubeuge. 

Maubeuge is a fortified town with a very good inn, 
the Grand Cerf. It seemed to be inhabited principally 
by soldiers and bagmen ; at least, these were all that we 
saw except the hotel servants. We had to stay there 
some time, for the canoes were in no hurry to follow us, 
and at last stuck hopelessly in the custom-house until 
we went back to liberate them. There was nothing to 
do, nothing to see. We had good meals, which was a 
great matter, but that was all. 

The Cigarette was nearly taken up upon a charge of 
drawing the fortifications : a feat of which he was hope- 
lessly incapable. And besides, as I suppose each bellig- 



20 An Inland Voyage 

erent nation has a plan of the other's fortified places 
already, these precautions are of the nature of shutting 
the stable door after the steed is away. But I have no 
doubt they help to keep up a good spirit at home. It is a 
great thing if you can persuade people that they are some- 
how or other partakers in a mystery. It makes them feel 
bigger. Even the Freemasons, who have been shown up 
to satiety, preserve a kind of pride; and not a grocer 
among them, however honest, harmless, and empty-headed 
he may feel himself to be at bottom, but comes home 
from one of their ccenacula w^ith a portentous significance 
for himself. 

It is an odd thing how happily two people, if there are 
two, can live in a place where they have no acquaintance. 
I think the spectacle of a whole life in which you have 
no part paralyses personal desire. You are content to 
become a mere spectator. The baker stands in his door ; 
the colonel with his three medals goes by to the cafe at 
night; the troops drum and trumpet and man the ram- 
parts as bold as so many lions. It would task language 
to say how placidly you behold all this. In a place where 
you have taken some root you are provoked out of your 
indifference ; you have a hand in the game, — your 
friends are fighting with the army. But in a strange town, 
not small enough to grow too soon familiar, nor so large 
as to have laid itself out for travellers, you stand so far 
apart from the business that you positively forget it would 
be possible to go nearer ; you have so little human interest 
around you that you do not remember yourself to be a 
man. Perhaps in a very short time you would be one 
no longer. Gymnosophists go into a wood with all nature 
seething around them, with romance on every side; it 



At Maubeuge 21 

would be much more to the purpose if they took up their 
abode in a dull country town where they should see just 
so much of humanity as to keep them from desiring more, 
and only the stale externals of man's life. These externals 
are as dead to us as so many formalities, and speak a dead 
language in our eyes and ears. They have no more mean- 
ing than an oath or a salutation. We are so much ac- 
customed to see married couples going to church of a 
Sunday that we have clean forgotten what they represent ; 
and novelists are driven to rehabilitate adultery, no less, 
when they wish to show us what a beautiful thing it is 
for a man and a woman to live for each other. 

One person in Maubeuge, however, showed me some- 
thing more than his outside. That was the driver of 
the hotel omnibus : a mean enough looking little man, as 
well as I can remember, but with a spark of something 
human in his soul. He had heard of our little journey, 
and came to me at once in envious sympathy. How he 
longed to travel ! he told me. How he longed to be 
somewhere else, and see the round world before he 
went into the grave! "Here I am," said he. "I 
drive to the station. Well. And then I drive back 
again to the hotel. And so on every day and all the 
week round. My God, is that life?" I could not say 
I thought it was — for him. He pressed me to tell him 
where I had been, and where I hoped to go; and as he 
listened, I declare the fellow sighed. Might not this 
have been a brave African traveller, or gone to the Indies 
after Drake? But it is an evil age for the gipsily inclined 
among men. He who can sit squarest on a three-legged 
stool, he it is who has the wealth and glory. 

I wonder if my friend is still driving the omnibus for 



22 An Inland Voyage 

the Grand Cerj! Not very likely, I believe ; for I think 
he was on the eve of mutiny when we passed through, 
and perhaps our passage determined him for good. Better 
a thousand times that he should be a tramp, and mend 
pots and pans by the wayside, and sleep under trees, 
and see the dawn and the sunset every day above a new 
horizon. I think I hear you say that it is a respectable 
position to drive an omnibus? Very well. What right 
has he who likes it not to keep those who would like it 
dearly out of this respectable position? Suppose a dish 
were not to my taste, and you told me that it was a 
favourite among the rest of the company, what should 
I conclude from that ? Not to finish the dish against my 
stomach, I suppose. 

Respectability is a very good thing in its way, but it 
does not rise superior to all considerations. I would not 
for a moment venture to hint that it was a matter of 
taste ; but I think I will go as far as this : that if a position 
is admittedly unkind, uncomfortable, unnecessary, and 
superfluously useless, although it were as respectable 
as the Church of England, the sooner a man is out of it, 
the better for himself, and all concerned. 



ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED 

To Quartes 

About three in the afternoon the whole establishment 
of the Grand Cerf accompanied us to the water's edge. 
The man of the omnibus was there with haggard eyes. 
Poor cage-bird ! Do I not remember the time when I 
myself haunted the station, to watch train after train 
carry its complement of freemen into the night, and 
read the names of distant places on the time-bills with 
indescribable longings? 

We were not clear of the fortifications before the rain 
began. The wind was contrary, and blew in furious 
gusts ; nor were the aspects of nature any more clement 
than the doings of the sky. For we passed through a 
blighted country, sparsely covered with brush, but hand- 
somely enough diversified with factory chimneys. We 
landed in a soiled meadow among some pollards, and 
there smoked a pipe in a flaw of fair weather. But the 
wind blew so hard we could get little else to smoke. There 
were no natural objects in the neighbourhood, but some 
sordid workshops. A group of children, headed by a tall 
girl, stood and watched us from a little distance all the 
time we stayed. I heartily wonder what they thought of us. 

At Hautmont, the lock was almost impassable; the 
landing-place being steep and high, and the launch at a 
long distance. Near a dozen grimy workmen lent us a 
hand. They refused any reward ; and, what is much 

23 



24 An Inland Voyage 

better, refused it handsomely, without conveying any 
sense of insult. ^' It is a way we have in our country-side," 
said they. And a very becoming way it is. In Scot- 
land, where also you will get services for nothing, the good 
people reject your money as if you had been trying to 
corrupt a voter. When people take the trouble to do dig- 
nified acts, it is worth while to take a little more, and 
allow the dignity to be common to all concerned. But 
in our brave Saxon countries, where we plod threescore 
years and ten in the mud, and the wind keeps singing in 
our ears from birth to burial, we do our good and bad with 
a high hand and almost offensively ; and make even our 
alms a witness-bearing and an act of war against the wrong. 

After Hautmont, the sun came forth again and the wind 
went down; and a little paddling took us beyond the 
iron works and through a delectable land. The river 
wound among low hills, so that sometimes the sun was at 
our backs and sometimes it stood right ahead, and the 
river before us was one sheet of intolerable glory. On 
either hand meadows and orchards bordered, with a mar- 
gin of sedge and water flowers, upon the river. The hedges 
were of great height, woven about the trunks of hedgerow 
elms ; and the fields, as they were often very small, looked 
like a series of bowers along the stream. There was never 
any prospect; sometimes a hill-top with its trees would 
look over the nearest hedgerow, just to make a middle 
distance for the sky; but that was all. The heaven 
was bare of clouds. The atmosphere, after the rain, was 
of enchanting purity. The river doubled among the 
hillocks, a shining strip of mirror glass; and the dip of 
the paddles set the flowers shaking along the brink. 

In the meadows wandered black and white cattle 



On the Sambre Canalised 25 

fantastically marked. One beast, with a white head 
and the rest of the body glossy black, came to the edge 
to drink, and stood gravely twitching his ears at me as 
I went by, like some sort of preposterous clergyman in 
a play. A moment after I heard a loud plunge, and, 
turning my head, saw the clergyman struggling to shore. 
The bank had given way under his feet. 

Besides the cattle, we saw no living things except a 
few birds and a great many fishermen. These sat along 
the edges of the meadows, sometimes with one rod, some- 
times with as many as half a score. They seemed stupefied 
with contentment ; and, when we induced them to ex- 
change a few words with us about the weather, their 
voices sounded quiet and far away. There was a strange 
diversity of opinion among them as to the kind of fish 
for which they set their lures; although they were all 
agreed in this, that the river was abundantly supplied. 
Where it was plain that no two of them had ever cauglft 
the same kind of fish, we could not help suspecting that 
perhaps not any one of them had ever caught a fish at 
all. I hope, since the afternoon was so lovely, that they 
were one and all rewarded ; and that a silver booty went 
home in every basket for the pot. Some of my friends 
would cry shame on me for this ; but I prefer a man 
were he only an angler, to the bravest pair of gills in all 
God's waters. I do not affect fishes unless when cooked 
in sauce; whereas an angler is an important piece of 
river scenery, and hence deserves some recognition among 
canoeists. He can always tell you where you are, after a 
mild fashion ; and his quiet presence serves to accentuate 
the solitude and stillness, and remind you of the glittering 
citizens below your boat. 



26 An Inland Voyage 

The Sambre turned so industriously to and fro among 
his Httle hills that it was past six before we drew near 
the lock at Quartes. There were some children on the 
tow-path, with whom the Cigarette fell into a chaffing talk 
as they ran along beside us. It was in vain that I warned 
him. In vain I told him in EngUsh that boys were the 
most dangerous creatures ; and if once you began with 
them, it was safe to end in a shower of stones. For my 
own part, whenever anything was addressed to me, I 
smiled gently and shook my head, as though I were an 
inoffensive person inadequately acquainted with French. 
For indeed, I have had such an experience at home that 
I would sooner meet many wild animals than a troop of 
healthy urchins. 

But I was doing injustice to these peaceable young 
Hainaulters. When the Cigarette went off to make in- 
quiries, I got out upon the bank to smoke a pipe and 
superintend the boats, and became at once the centre of 
much amiable curiosity. The children had been joined 
by this time by a young woman and a mild lad who had 
lost an arm ; and this gave me more security. When I 
let slip my first word or so in French, a little girl nodded 
her head with a comical grown-up air. "Ah, you see," 
she said, '*he understands well enough now; he was just 
making believe." And the little group laughed together 
very good-naturedly. 

They were much impressed when they heard we came 
from England; and the little girl proffered the informa- 
tion that England was an island "and a far way from here 
— bieft loin d'ici.'^ 

''Ay, you may say that, a far way from here," said 
the lad with one arm. 



On the Sambre Canalised 27 

I was nearly as homesick as ever I was in my life ; they 
seemed to make it such an incalculable distance to the 
place where I first saw the day. 

They admired the canoes very much. And I observed 
one piece of delicacy in these children which is worthy of 
record. They had been deafening us for the last hundred 
yards with petitions for a sail ; ay, and they deafened us 
to the same tune next morning when we came to start ; 
but then, when the canoes were lying empty, there was no 
word of any such petition. Delicacy? or perhaps a bit 
of fear for the water in so crank a vessel ? I hate cynicism 
a great deal worse than I do the devil ; unless perhaps, 
the two were the same thing? And yet 'tis a good tonic ; 
the cold tub and bath-towel of the sentiments ; and posi- 
tively necessary to life in cases of advanced sensibility. 

From the boats they turned to my costume. They 
could not make enough of my red sash; and my knife 
filled them with awe. 

''They make them like that in England," said the boy 
with one arm. I was glad he did not know how badly 
we make them in England nowadays. "They are for 
people who go away to sea," he added, "and to defend 
one's life against great fish." 

I felt I was becoming a more and more romantic figure 
to the little group at every word. And so I suppose I 
was. Even my pipe, although it was an ordinary French 
clay, pretty well "trousered," as they call it, would 
have a rarity in their eyes, as a thing coming from so 
far away. And if my feathers were not very fine in them- 
selves, they were all from over seas. One thing in my 
outfit, however, tickled them out of all politeness; and 
that was the bemired condition of my canvas shoes. I 



28 An Inland Voyage 

suppose they were sure the mud at any rate was a home 
product. The little girl (who was the genius of the 
party) displayed her own sabots in competition ; and I 
wish you could have seen how gracefully and merrily she 
did it. 

The young woman's milk-can, a great amphora of 
hammered brass, stood some way ofl upon the sward. I 
was glad of an opportunity to divert public attention from 
myself and return some of the compliments I had received. 
So I admired it cordially both for form and colour, telling 
them, and very truly, that it was as beautiful as gold. They 
were not surprised. The things were plainly the boast 
of the country-side. And the children expatiated on the 
costliness of these amphorae, which sell sometimes as high 
as thirty francs apiece; told me how they were carried 
on donkeys, one on either side of the saddle, a brave 
caparison in themselves ; and how they were to be seen 
all over the district, and at the larger farms in great num- 
ber and of great size. 



PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 
We are Pedlars 

The Cigarette returned with good news. There were 
beds to be had some ten minutes' walk from where we 
were, at a place called Pont. We stowed the canoes in a 
granary, and asked among the children for a guide. The 
circle at once widened round us, and our offers of reward 
were received in dispiriting silence. We were plainly a pair 
of Bluebeards to the children ; they might speak to us in 
public places, and where they had the advantage of num- 
bers ; but it was another thing to venture off alone with 
two uncouth and legendary characters, who had dropped 
from the clouds upon their hamlet this quiet afternoon, 
sashed and beknived, and with a flavour of great voyages. 
The owner of the granary came to our assistance, singled 
out one little fellow, and threatened him with corporalities ; 
or I suspect we should have had to find the way for our- 
selves. As it was, he was more frightened at the granary 
man than the strangers, having perhaps had some experi- 
ence of the former. But I fancy his little heart must 
have been going at a fine rate, for he kept trotting at a 
respectful distance in front, and looking back at us with 
scared eyes. Not otherwise may the children of the young 
world have guided Jove or one of his Olympian compeers 
on an adventure. 

A miry lane led us up from Quartes, with its church 

29 



30 An Inland Voyage 

and bickering wind-mill. The hinds were trudging home- 
wards from the fields. A brisk little old woman passed 
us by. She was seated across a donkey between a pair 
of glittering milk-cans, and, as she went, she kicked jauntily 
with her heels upon the donkey's side, and scattered 
shrill remarks among the wayfarers. It was notable that 
none of the tired men took the trouble to reply. Our 
conductor soon led us out of the lane and across country. 
The sun had gone down, but the west in front of us was 
one lake of level gold. The path wandered awhile in the 
open, and then passed under a trellis like a bower in- 
definitely prolonged. On either hand were shadowy 
orchards; cottages lay low among the leaves and sent 
their smoke to heaven ; every here and there, in an open- 
ing, appeared the great gold face of the west. 

I never saw the Cigarette in such an idyllic frame of 
mind. He waxed positively lyrical in praise of country 
scenes. I was little less exhilarated myself; the mild 
air of the evening, the shadows, the rich lights, and the 
silence made a symphonious accompaniment about our 
walk; and we both determined to avoid towns for the 
future and sleep in hamlets. 

At last the path went between two houses, and turned 
the party out into a wide, muddy highroad, bordered, 
as far as the eye could reach on either hand, by an un- 
sightly village. The houses stood well back, leaving a 
ribbon of waste land on either side of the road, where 
there were stacks of firewood, carts, barrows, rubbish 
heaps, and a little doubtful grass. Away on the left, a 
gaunt tower stood in the middle of the street. What 
it had been in past ages I know not : probably a hold in 
time of war ; but nowadays it bore an illegible dial-plate 



Pont-Sur-Sambre 3 1 

in its upper parts, and near the bottom an iron letter- 
box. 

The inn to which we had been recommended at Quartes 
was full, or else the landlady did not like our looks. I 
ought to say, that with our long, damp india-rubber bags, 
we presented rather a doubtful type of civilisation : like 
rag-and-bone men, the Cigarette imagined. ''These 
gentlemen are pedlars ? — Ces messieurs sont des mar- 
chands?^^ — asked the landlady. And then, without 
waiting for an answer, which I suppose she thought super- 
fluous in so plain a case, recommended us to a butcher who 
lived hard by the tower and took in travellers to lodge. 

Thither went we. But the butcher was flitting, and 
all his beds were taken down. Or else he didn't like our 
looks. As a parting shot, we had, ''These gentlemen are 
pedlars?" 

It began to grow dark in earnest. We could no longer 
distinguish the faces of the people who passed us by with 
an inarticulate good-evening. And the householders of 
Pont seemed very economical with their oil, for we saw 
not a single window lighted in all that long village. I 
believe it is the longest village in the world ; but I dare 
say in our predicament every pace counted three times 
over. We were much cast down when we came to the 
last auberge, and, looking in at the dark door, asked 
timidly if we could sleep there for the night. A female 
voice assented, in no very friendly tones. We clapped 
the bags down and found our way to chairs. 

The place was in total darkness, save a red glow in the 
chinks and ventilators of the stove. But now the land- 
lady lit a lamp to see her new guests ; I suppose the 
darkness was what saved us another expulsion, for I 



32 An Inland Voyage 

cannot say she looked gratified at our appearance. We 
were in a large, bare apartment, adorned with two alle- 
gorical prints of Music and Painting, and a copy of the 
Law against Public Drunkenness. On one side there was 
a bit of a bar, with some half-a-dozen bottles. Two 
labourers sat waiting supper, in attitudes of extreme 
weariness; a plain-looking lass bustled about with a 
sleepy child of two, and the landlady began to derange 
the pots upon the stove and set some beefsteak to grill. 

"These gentlemen are pedlars?" she asked sharply; 
and that was all the conversation forthcoming. We 
began to think we might be pedlars, after all. I never 
knew a population with so narrow a range of conjecture 
as the innkeepers of Pont-sur-Sambre. But manners 
and bearing have not a wider currency than bank-notes. 
You have only to get far enough out of your beat, and 
all your accomplished airs will go for nothing. These 
Hainaulters could see no difference between us and the 
average pedlar. Indeed, we had some grounds for re- 
flection while the steak was getting ready, to see how per- 
fectly they accepted us at their own valuation, and how 
our best politeness and best efforts at entertainment 
seemed to fit quite suitably with the character of pack- 
men. At least it seemed a good account of the profession 
in France, that even before such judges we could not 
beat them at our own weapons. 

At last we were called to table. The two hinds (and 
one of them looked sadly worn and white in the face, as 
though sick with over-work and under-feeding) supped 
off a single plate of some sort of bread-berry, some po- 
tatoes in their jackets, a small cup of coffee sweetened 
with sugar candy, and one tumbler of swipes. The land- 



Pont-Sur-Sambre 



,33 



lady, her son, and the lass aforesaid took the same. Our 
meal was quite a banquet by comparison. We had some 
beefsteak, not so tender as it migjit have been, some 
of the potatoes, some cheese, an extra glass of the swipes, 
and white sugar in our coffee. 

You see what it is to be a gentleman, — I beg your 
pardon, what it is to be a pedlar. It had not before 




The Town Hall at Noyon (See page 92) 



occurred to me that a pedlar was a great man in a labourer's 
alehouse ; but now that I had to enact the part for the 
evening, I found that so it was. He has in his hedge 
quarters somewhat the same pre-eminency as the man 
who takes a private parlour in a hotel. The more you 
look into it the more infinite are the class distinctions 
among men ; and possibly, by a happy dispensation there 



34 An Inland Voyage — 

is no one at all at the bottom of the scale; no one but I 
can find some superiority over somebody else, to keep 
up his pride withal. 

We were displeased enough with our fare. Particu- 
larly the Cigarette; for I tried to make believe that I 
was amused with the adventure, tough beefsteak and 
all. According to the Lucretian maxim, our steak should 
have been flavoured by the look of the other 'people's 
bread-berry ; but we did not find it so in practice. You 
may have a head knowledge that other people live more 
poorly than yourself, but it is not agreeable — I was 
going to say, it is against the etiquette of the universe 
— to sit at the same table and pick your own superior 
diet from among their crusts. I had not seen such a 
thing done since the greedy boy at school with his birth- 
day cake. It was odious enough to witness, I could re- 
member ; and I had never thought to play the part my- 
self. But there, again, you see what it is to be a pedlar. 

There is no doubt that the poorer classes in our country 
are much more charitably disposed than their superiors 
in wealth. And I fancy it must arise a great deal from the 
comparative indistinction of the easy and the not so easy 
in these ranks. A workman or a pedlar cannot shutter 
himself off from his less comfortable neighbours. If he 
treats himself to a luxury, he must do it in the face of a 
dozen who cannot. And what should more directly lead 
to charitable thoughts ? . . . Thus the poor man, camp- 
ing out in life, sees it as it is, and knows that every mouth- 
ful he puts in his belly has been wrenched out of the fingers 
of the hungry. 

But at a certain stage of prosperity, as in a balloon 
ascent, the fortunate person passes through a zone of 



Pont-Sur-Sambre 35 

clouds, and sublunary matters are thenceforward hidden 
from his view. He sees nothing but the heavenly bodies, 
all in admirable order and positively as good as new. 
He finds himself surrounded in the most touching manner 
by the attentions of Providence, and compares himself 
involuntarily with the lilies and the skylarks. He does 
not precisely sing, of course ; but then he looks so unas- 
suming in his open Landau ! If all the world dined at 
one table, this philosophy would meet with some rude 
knocks. 



PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 

The Travelling Merchant 

Like the lackeys in Moliere's farce, when the true 
nobleman broke in on their high life below stairs, we were 
destined to be confronted with a real pedlar. To make 
the lesson still more poignant for fallen gentlemen like 
us, he was a pedlar of infinitely more consideration than 
the sort of scurvy fellows we were taken for; like a lion 
among mice, or a ship of war bearing down upon two cock- 
boats. Indeed, he did not deserve the name of pedlar 
at all ; he was a travelling merchant. 

I suppose it was about half-past eight w^hen this worthy, 
Monsieur Hector Gilliard, of Maubeuge, turned up at 
the alehouse door in a tilt cart drawn by a donkey, and 
cried cheerily on the inhabitants. He was a lean, ner- 
vous flibber-tigibbet of a man, with something the look 
of an actor and something the look of a horse jockey. 
He had evidently prospered without any of the favours 
of education, for he adhered with stsrn simplicity to the 
masculine gender, and in the course of the evening passed 
off some fancy futures in a very florid style of architecture. 
With him came his wife, a comely young woman, with 
her hair tied in a yellow kerchief, and their son, a little 
fellow of four, in a blouse and military kepi. It was 
notable that the child was many degrees better dressed 
than either of the parents. We were informed he was 

36 



Pont-Sur-Sambre 37 

already at a boarding-school; but the holidays having 
just commenced, he was off to spend them with his par- 
ents on a cruise. An enchanting holiday occupation, 
was it not ? to travel all day with father and mother in 
the tilt cart full of countless treasures ; the green country 
rattling by on either side, and the children in all the vil- 
lages contemplating him with envy and wonder. It is 
better fun, during the holidays, to be the son of a travel- 
ling merchant, than son and heir to the greatest cotton 
spinner in creation. And as for being a reigning prince, 
— indeed, I never saw one if it was not Master Gilliard 1 

While M. Hector and the son of the house were putting 
up the donkey and getting all the valuables under lock 
and key, the landlady warmed up the remains of our 
beefsteak and fried the cold potatoes in slices, and Madame 
Gilliard set herself to waken the boy, who had come far 
that day, and was peevish and dazzled by the light. He 
was no sooner awake than he began to prepare himself 
for supper by eating galette, unripe pears, and cold po- 
tatoes, with, so far as I could judge, positive benefit to his 
appetite. 

The landlady, fired with motherly emulation, awoke 
her own little girl, and the two children were confronted. 
Master Gilliard looked at her for a moment, very much 
as a dog looks at his own reflection in a mirror before he 
turns away. He was at that time absorbed in the galette. 
His mother seemed crestfallen that he should display so 
little inclination towards the other sex, and expressed 
her disappointment with some candour and a very proper 
reference to the influence of years. 

Sure enough a time will come when he will pay more 
attention to the girls, and think a great deal less of his 



38 An Inland Voyage 

mother ; let us hope she will like it as well as she seemed 
to fancy. But it is odd enough ; the very women who 
profess most contempt for mankind as a sex seem to find 
even its ugliest particulars rather lively and high-minded 
in their own sons. 

The little girl looked longer and with more interest, 
probably because she was in her own house, while he was 
a traveller and accustomed to strange sights. And, be- 
sides, there was no galette in the case with her. 

All the time of supper there was nothing spoken of but 
my young lord. The two parents were both absurdly 
fond of their child. Monsieur kept insisting on his sa- 
gacity; how he knew all the children at school by 
name, and when this utterly failed on trial, how he was 
cautious and exact to a strange degree, and if asked any- 
thing, he would sit and think — and think, and if he did 
not know it, "my faith, he wouldn't tell you at all — ma 
foi, il ne vous le dira pas.'^ Which is certainly a very 
high degree of caution. At intervals, M. Hector would 
appeal to his wife, with his mouth full of beefsteak, as 
to the little fellow's age at such or such a time when he 
had said or done something memorable; and I noticed 
that Madame usually poohpoohed these inquiries. She 
herself was not boastful in her vein ; but she never had 
her fill of caressing the child ; and she seemed to take a 
gentle pleasure in recalling all that was fortunate in his 
little existence. No school-boy could have talked more 
of the holidays which were just beginning and less of 
the black school-time which must inevitably follow after. 
She showed, with a pride perhaps partly mercantile in 
origin, his pockets preposterously swollen with tops, and 
whistles, and string. When she called at a house in the 



Pont-Sur-Sambre 39 

way of business, it appeared he kept her company ; and, 
whenever a sale was made, received a sou out of the profit. 
Indeed, they spoiled him vastly, these two good people. 
But they had an eye to his manners, for all that, and 
reproved him for some little faults in breeding which oc- 
curred from time to time during supper. 

On the whole, I was not much hurt at being taken for 
a pedlar. I might think that I ate with greater delicacy, 
or that my mistakes in French belonged to a different 
order; but it was plain that these distinctions would 
be thrown away upon the landlady and the two labourers. 
In all essential things we and the Gilliards cut very much 
the same figure in the alehouse kitchen. M. Hector was 
more at home, indeed, and took a higher tone with the 
world ; but that was explicable on the ground of his driv- 
ing a donkey-cart, while we poor bodies tramped afoot. 
I dare say the rest of the company thought us dying with 
envy, though in no ill sense, to be as far up in the pro- 
fession as the new arrival. 

And of one thing I am sure ; that every one thawed 
and became more humanised and conversible as soon as 
these innocent people appeared upon the scene. I would 
not very readily trust the travelling merchant with any 
extravagant sum of money, but I am sure his heart was 
in the right place. In this mixed world, if you can find 
one or two sensible places in a man ; above all, if you 
should find a whole family living together on such pleasant 
terms, you may surely be satisfied, and take the rest for 
granted ; or, what is a great deal better, boldly make up 
your mind that you can do perfectly well without the 
rest, and that ten thousand bad traits cannot make a 
single good one any the less good. 



40 An Inland Voyage 

It was getting late. M. Hector lit a stable lantern 
and went off to his cart for some arrangement, and my 
young gentleman proceeded to divest himself of the better 
part of his raiment and play gymnastics on his mother's 
lap, and thence on to the floor, with accompaniment of 
laughter. 

''Are you going to sleep alone?" asked the servant lass. 

"There's little fear of that," says Master Gilliard. 

"You sleep alone at school," objected his mother. 
"Come, come, you must be a man." 

But he protested that school was a different matter 
from the holidays ; that there were dormitories at school, 
and silenced the discussion with kisses, his mother smiling, 
no one better pleased than she. 

There certainly was, as he phrased it, very little fear 
that he should sleep alone, for there was but one bed for 
the trio. We, on our part, had firmly protested against 
one man's accommodation for two ; and we had a double 
bedded pen in the loft of the house, furnished, beside the 
beds, with exactly three hat pegs and one table. There 
was not so much as a glass of water. But the window 
would open, by good fortune. 

Some time before I fell asleep the loft was full of the 
sound of mighty snoring ; the Gilliards, and the labourers, 
and the people of the inn, all at it, I suppose, with one 
consent. The young moon outside shone very clearly over 
Pont-siir-Sambre, and down upon the alehouse where 
all we pedlars were abed. 



ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED 

To Landrecies 

In the morning, when we came down-stairs the land- 
lady pointed out to us two pails of water behind the street 
door. " Voild de Veau pour voiis debarbouiller^'^ says she. 
And so there we made a shift to wash ourselves, while 
Madame Gilliard brushed the family boots on the outer 
doorstep, and M. Hector, whistling cheerily, arranged 
some small goods for the day's campaign in a portable 
chest of drawers, which formed a part of his baggage. 
Meanwhile the child was letting off Waterloo crackers 
all over the floor. 

I wonder, by the way, what they call Waterloo crackers 
in France ; perhaps Austerlitz crackers. There is a great 
deal in the point of view. Do you remember the French- 
man who, travelling by way of Southampton, was put 
down in Waterloo Station, and had to drive across Water- 
loo Bridge? He had a mind to go home again, it seems. 

Pont itself is on the river, but whereas it is ten minutes' 
walk from Quartes by dry land, it is six weary kilometres 
by water. We left our bags at the inn and walked to our 
canoes through the wet orchards unencumbered. Some 
of the children were there to see us off, but we were no 
longer the mysterious beings of the night before. A de- 
parture is much less romantic than an unexplained arrival 
in the golden evening. Although we might be greatly 
taken at a ghost's first appearance, we should behold 
him vanish with comparative equanimity. 

41 



42 An Inland Voyage 

The good folks- of the inn at Pont, when we called there 
for the bags, were overcome with marvelling. At the 
sight of these two dainty little boats, with a fluttering 
union jack on each, and all the varnish shining from the 
sponge, they began to perceive that they had entertained 
angels unawares. The landlady stood upon the bridge, 
probably lamenting she had charged so little; the son 
ran to and fro, and called out the neighbours to enjoy the 
sight ; and we paddled away from quite a crowd of rapt 
observers. These gentlemen pedlars, indeed ! Now you 
see their quality too late. 

The whole day was showery, with occasional drenching 
plumps. We were soaked to the skin, then partially 
dried in the sun, then soaked once more. But there were 
some calm intervals, and one notably, when we were skirt- 
ing the forest of Mormal, a sinister name to the ear, but 
a place most gratifying to sight and smell. It looked 
solemn along the river-side, drooping its boughs into the 
water, and piling them up aloft into a wall of leaves. 
What is a forest but a city of nature's own, full of hardy 
and innocuous living things, where there is nothing dead 
and nothing made with the hands, but the citizens them- 
selves are the houses and public monuments ? There is 
nothing so much alive and yet so quiet as a woodland; 
and a pair of people, swinging past in canoes, feel very 
small and bustling by comparison. 

And, surely, of all smells in the world the smell of many 
trees is the sweetest and most fortifying. The sea has a 
rude pistolling sort of odour, that takes you in the nostrils 
like snuff, and carries with it a fine sentiment of open 
water and tall ships ; but the smell of a forest, which comes 
nearest to this in tonic quality, surpasses it by many de- 



On the Sambre Canalised 43 

grees in the quality of softness. Again, the smell of the 
sea has little variety, but the smell of a forest is infinitely 
changeful; it varies with the hour of the day, not in 
strength merely, but in character; and the different 
sorts of trees, as you go from one zone of the wood to an- 
other, seem to live among different kinds of atmosphere. 
Usually the rosin of the fir predominates. But some 
woods are more coquettish in their habits ; and the breath 
of the forest Mormal, as it came aboard upon us that 
showery afternoon, was perfumed with nothing less deli- 
cate than sweetbrier. 

I wish our way had always lain among woods. Trees 
are the most civil society. An old oak that has been 
growing where he stands since before the Reformation, 
taller than many spires, more stately than the greater part 
of mountains, and yet a living thing, liable to sicknesses 
and death, like you and me : is not that in itself a speak- 
ing lesson in history? But acres on acres full of such 
patriarchs contiguously rooted, their green tops billow- 
ing in the wind, their stalwart younglings pushing up 
about their knees ; a whole forest, healthy and beautiful, 
giving colour to the light, giving perfume to the air; 
what is this but the most imposing piece in nature's 
repertory? Heine wished to lie like Merlin under the 
oaks of Broceliande. I should not be satisfied with one 
tree ; but if the wood grew together like a banyan grove, 
I would be buried under the taproot of the whole; my 
parts should circulate from oak to oak ; and my conscious- 
ness should be diffused abroad in all the forest, and give 
a common heart to that assembly of green spires, so that 
it, also, might rejoice in its own loveliness and dignity. 
I think I feel a thousand squirrels leaping from bough to 



44 An Inland Voyage 

bough in my vast mausoleum ; and the birds and the winds 
merrily coursing over its uneven, leafy surface. 

Alas ! the forest of Mormal is only a little bit of a wood, 
and it was but for a little way that we skirted by its 
boundaries. And the rest of the time the rain kept com- 
ing in squirts and the wind in squalls, until one's heart 
grew weary of such fitful, scolding weather. It was 
odd how the showers began when we had to carry the 
boats over a lock and must expose our legs. They al- 
ways did. This is a sort of thing that readily begets a 
personal feeling against nature. There seems no reason 
why the shower should not come five minutes before or 
five minutes after, unless you suppose an intention to 
affront you. The Cigarette had a mackintosh which put 
him more or less above these contrarieties. But I had 
to bear the brunt uncovered. I began to remember that 
nature was a woman. My companion, in a rosier temper, 
listened with great satisfaction to my jeremiads, and 
ironically concurred. He instanced, as a cognate matter, 
the action of the tides, ''which," said he, ''was altogether 
designed for the confusion of canoeists, except in so far 
as it was calculated to minister to a barren vanity on the 
part of the moon." 

At the last lock, some little way out of Landrecies, I 
refused to go any farther ; and sat hi a drift of rain by the 
side of the bank, to have a reviving pipe. A vivacious 
old man, whom I took to have been the devil, drew near, 
and questioned me about our journey. In the fulness of 
my heart I laid bare our plans before him. He said it 
was the silliest enterprise that ever he heard of. Why, 
did I not know, he asked me, that it was nothing but 
locks, locks, locks, the whole* way? not to mention that, 



On the Sambre Canalised 45 

at this season of the year, we would find the Oise quite 
dry? "Get into a train, my little young man," said he, 
"and go you away home to your parents." I was so 
astounded at the man's malice that I could only stare 
at him in silence. A tree would never have spoken to me 
like this. At last I got out with some words. We had 
come from Antwerp already, I told him, which was a good 
long way; and we should do the rest in spite of him. 
Yes, I said, if there were no other reason, I would do it 
now, •just because he had dared to say we could not. The 
pleasant old gentleman looked at me sneeringly, made an 
allusion to my canoe, and marched off, wagging his head. 

I was still inwardly fuming when up came a pair of 
young fellows, who imagined I was the Cigarette's servant, 
on a comparison, I suppose, of my bare jers^ with the 
other's mackintosh, and asked me many questions about 
my place and my master's character. I said he was a 
good enough fellow^ but had this absurd voyage on the 
head. "Oh, no, no," said one, "you must not Say that; 
it is not absurd ; it is very courageous of him." I believe 
these were a couple of afigels sent to give me heart again. 
It was truly fortifying to reproduce all the old man's 
insinuations, as if they were original to me in my char- 
acter of a malcontent footman, and have them brushed 
away hke so many flies by these admirable young men. 

When I recounted this affair to the Cigarette, "They 
must have a curious idea of how English servants behave," 
says he, drily, "for you treated me like a brute beast 
at the lock." 

I was a good deal mortified ; but my temper had suf- 
fered, it is a fact. 



AT LANDRECIES 

At Landrecies the rain still fell and the wind still blew ; 
but we found a double-bedded room with plenty of furni- 
ture, real water-jugs with real water in them, and dinner, 
a real dinner, not innocent of real wine. After having 
been a pedlar for one night, and a butt for the eleyients 
during the whole of the next day, these comfortable cir- 
cumstances fell on my heart like sunshine. There was 
an English fruiterer at dinner, travelling with a Belgian 
fruiterer ; in the evening at the cafe we watched our com- 
patriot drop a good deal of money at corks, and I don't 
know why, but this pleased us. 

It turned out that we were to see more of Landrecies 
than we expected ; for the weather next day was simply 
bedlamite. It is not the place one would have chosen 
for a day's rest, for it consists almost entirely of fortifi- 
cations. Within the ramparts, a few blocks of houses, 
a long row of barracks, and a cliurch figure, with what 
countenance they may, as the town. There seems to be 
no trade, and a shop-keeper from whom I bought a six- 
penny flint and steel was so much affected that he filled 
my pockets with spare flints into the bargain. The only 
public buildings that had any interest for us were the hotel 
and the cafe. But we visited the church. There lies 
Marshal Clarke. But as neither of us had ever heard 
of that military hero, we bore the associations of the spot 
with fortitude. 

In all garrison towns, guard-calls, and reveilles, and 
46 



At Landrecies 47 

such like, make a fine, romantic interlude in civic business. 
Bugles, and drums, and fifes are of themselves most ex- 
cellent things in nature, and when they carry the mind to 
marching armies and the picturesque vicissitudes of war 
they stir up something proud in the heart. But in a 
shadow of a town like Landrecies, with little else moving, 
these points of war made a proportionate commotion. 
Indeed, they were the only things to remember. It was 
just the place to hear the round going by at night in the 
darkness, with the solid tramp of men marching, and the 
startling reverberations of the drum. It reminded you 
that even this place was a point in the great warfaring 
system of Europe, and might on some future day be ringed 
about with cannon smoke and thunder, and make itself 
a name among strong towns. 

The drum, at any rate, from its martial voice and 
notable physiological effect, nay, even from its cumbrous 
and comical shape, stands alone among the instruments 
of noise. And if it be true, as I have heard it said, that 
drums are covered with asses' skin, what a picturesque 
irony is there in that ! As if this long-suffering animal's 
hide had not been sufficiently belaboured during life, now 
by Lyonnese costermongers, now by presumptuous 
Hebrew prophets, it must be stripped from his poor hinder 
quarters after death, stretched on a drum, and beaten night 
after night round the streets of every garrison town in 
Europe. And up the heights of Alma and Spicheren, and 
wherever death has his red flag a-flying, and sounds his 
own potent tuck upon the cannons, there also must the 
drummer boy, hurrying with white face over fallen com- 
rades, batter and bemaul this slip of skin from the loins 
of peaceable donkeys. 



48 An Inland Voyage 

Generally a man is never more uselessly employed than 
when he is at this trick of bastinadoing asses' hide. We 
know what effect it has in life, and how your dull ass will 
not mend his pace with beating. But in this state of 
mummy and melancholy survival of itself, when the 
hollow skin reverberates to the drummer's wrist, and 
each dub-a-dub goes direct to a man's heart, and puts 
madness there, and that disposition of the pulses which 
we, in our big way of talking, nickname Heroism, — is 
there not something in the nature of a revenge upon the 
donkey's persecutors? Of old, he might say, you drubbed 
me up hill and down dale and I must endure ; but now that 
I am dead those dull thwacks that were scarcely audible 
in country lanes have become stirring music in front of 
the brigade, and for every blow that you lay on my old 
great-coat, you will see a comrade stumble and fall. 

Not long after the drums had passed the cafe, the 
Cigarette and the Arethusa began to grow sleepy, and 
set out for the hotel, which was only a door or two away. 
But although we had been somewhat indifferent to 
Landrecies, Landrecies had not been indifferent to us. 
All day, we learned, people had been running out between 
the squalls to visit our two boats. Hundreds of persons, 
so said report, although it fitted ill with our idea of the 
town, — hundreds of persons had inspected them where 
they lay in a coal-shed. We were becoming lions in Lan- 
drecies, who had been only pedlars the night before in 
Pont. 

And now, when we left the cafe, we were pursued and 
overtaken at the hotel door by no less a person than the, 
Juge de Paix ; a functionary, -as far as I can make out, of 
the character of a Scotch Sheriff Substitute. He gave 



At Landrecies 49 

us his card and invited us to sup with him on the spot, 
very neatly, very gracefully, as Frenchmen can do these 
things. It was for the credit of Landrecies, said he ; and 
although we knew very well how little credit we could do 
the place, we must have been churlish fellows to refuse 
an invitation so politely introduced. 

The house of the judge was close by; it was a well- 
appointed bachelor's establishment, with a curious col- 
lection of old brass warming-pans upon the walls. Some 
of these were most elaborately carved. It seemed a pic- 
turesque idea for a collector. You could not help think- 
ing how many nightcaps had wagged over these warming- 
pans in past generations ; what jests may have been made 
and kisses taken while they were in service; and how 
often they had been uselessly paraded in the bed of death. 
If they could only speak at what absurd, indecorous, and 
tragical scenes had they not been present ? 

The wine was excellent. When we made the judge our 
compliments upon a bottle, "I do not give it you as my 
worst," said he. I wonder when Englishmen will learn 
these hospitable graces. They are worth learning ; they 
set off life and make ordinary moments ornamental. 

There were two other Landrecienses present. One 
was the collector of something or other, I forget what ; 
the other, we were told, was the principal notary of the 
place. So it happened that we all five more or less fol- 
lowed the law. At this rate, the "talk was pretty certain 
to become technical. The Cigarette expounded the poor 
laws very magisterially. And a little later I found my- 
self laying down the Scotch law of illegitimacy, of which 
I am glad to say I know nothing. The collector and 
the notary, who were both married men, accused the 



50 An Inland Voyage 

judge, who was a bachelor, of having started the subject. 
He deprecated the charge, with a conscious, pleased air, 
just like all the men I have ever seen, be they French or 
English. How strange that we should all, in our un- 
guarded moments, rather like to be thought a bit of a 
rogue with the women ! 

As the evening went on the wine grew more to my 
taste ; the spirits proved better than the wine ; the com- 
pany was genial. This was the highest water mark of 
popular favour on the whole cruise. After all, being in 
a judge's house, was there not something semi-official 
in the tribute? And so, remembering what a great 
country France is, we did full justice to our entertainment. 
Landrecies had been a long while asleep before we re- 
turned to the hotel; and the sentries on the ramparts 
were already looking for daybreak. 



SAMBRE AND OISE CANAL 

Canal Boats 

Next day we made a late start in the rain. The judge 
pohtely escorted us to the end of the lock under an um- 
brella. We had now brought ourselves to a pitch of 
humility, in the matter of weather, not often attained 
except in the Scotch Highlands. A rag of blue sky or a 
glimpse of sunshine set our hearts singing ; and when the 
rain was not heavy we counted the day almost fair. 

Long lines of barges lay one after another along 'the 
canal, many of them looking mighty spruce and shipshape 
in their jerkin of Archangel tar picked out with white 
and green. Some carried gay iron railings and quite a 
parterre of flowerpots. Children played on the decks, 
as heedless of the rain as if they had been brought up on 
Loch Caron side ; men fished over the gunwale, some of 
them under umbrellas; women did their washing; and 
every barge boasted its mongrel cur by way of watch- 
dog. Each one barked furiously at the canoes, running 
alongside until he had got to the end of his own ship, and 
so passing on the word to the dog aboard the next. We 
must have seen something like a hundred of these embark- 
ations in the course of that day's paddle, ranged one after 
another like the houses in a street; and from not one of 
them were we disappointed of this accompaniment. It 
was like visiting a menagerie, the Cigarette remarked. 

51 



52 An Inland Voyage 

These little cities by the canal-side had a very odd ef- 
fect upon the mind. They seemed, with their flower- 
pots and smoking chimneys, their washings and dinners, 
a rooted piece of nature in the scene ; and yet if only the 
canal below were to open, one junk after another would 
hoist sail or harness horses and swim away into all parts 
of France ; and the impromptu hamlet would separate, 
house by house, to the four winds. The children who 
played together to-day by the Sambre and Oise Canal, 
each at his own father's threshold, when and where might 
they next meet? 

For some time past the subject of barges had occupied 
a great deal of our talk, and we had projected an old age 
on the canals of Europe. It was to be the most leisurely 
of progresses, now on a swift river at the tail of a steam- 
boat, now waiting horses for days together on some in- 
considerable junction. We should be seen pottering on 
deck in all the dignity of years, our white beards falling 
into our laps. We were ever to be busied among paint- 
pots, so that there should be no white fresher and no green 
more emerald than ours, in all the navy of the canals. 
There should be books in the cabin, and tobacco jars, 
and some old Burgundy as red as a November sunset and 
as odorous as a violet in April. There should be a flageolet 
whence the Cigarette, with cunning touch, should draw 
melting music under the stars; or perhaps, laying that 
aside, upraise his voice — somewhat thinner than of 
yore, and with here and there a quaver, or call it a natural 
grace note — in rich and solemn psalmody. 

All this simmering in my mind set me wishing to go 
aboard one of these ideal houses of lounging. I had 
plenty to choose from, as I coasted one after another and 



Sambre and Olse Canal 53 

the dogs bayed at me for a vagrant. At last I saw a nice 
old man and his wife looking at me with some interest, 
so I gave them good-day and pulled up alongside. I 
began with a remark upon their dog, which had somewhat 
the look of a pointer ; thence I slid into a compliment on 
Madame's flowers, and thence into a word in praise of 
their way of life. 

If you ventured on such an experiment in England 
you would get a slap in the face at once. The life would 
be shown to be a vile one, not without a side shot at your 
better fortune. Now, what I like so. much in France is 
the clear, unflinching recognition by everybody of his own 
luck. They all know on which side their bread is but- 
tered, and take a pleasure in showing it to others, which 
is surely the better part of religion. And they scorn to 
make a poor mouth over their poverty, which I take to 
be the better part of manliness. I have heard a woman 
in quite a better position at home, with a good bit of 
money in hand, refer to her own child with a horrid whine 
as "si poor man's child." I would not say such a thing 
to the Duke of Westminster. And the French are full 
of this spirit of independence. Perhaps it is the result 
of republican institutions, as they call them. Much more 
likely it is because there are so few people really poor that 
the whiners are not enough to keep each other in coun- 
tenance. 

The people on the barge were delighted to hear that I 
admired their state. They understood perfectly well, 
they told me, how Monsieur envied them. Without 
doubt Monsieur was rich, and in that case he might make 
a canal boat as pretty as a villa — joli comme un chateau. 
And with that they invited me on board their own water 



54 An Inland Voyage 

villa. They apologised for their cabin ; they had not been 
rich enough to make it as it ought to be, 

''The fire should have been here, at this side," explained 
the husband. ''Then one might have a writing-table in 
the middle — books — and" (comprehensively) "all. It 
would be quite coquettish — qa serait tout-a-Jait coquet.''^ 
And he looked about him as though the improvements 
were already made. It was plainly not the first time that 
he had thus beautified his cabin in imagination ; and 
when next he makes a hit, I should expect to see the writ- 
ing-table in the middle. 

Madame had three birds in a cage. They were no great 
thing, she explained. Fine birds were so dear. They 
had sought to get a Hollandais last winter in Rouen 
(Rouen, thought I ; and is this whole mansion, with its 
dogs, and birds, and smoking chimneys, so far a traveller 
as that, and as homely an object among the cliffs and 
orchards of the Seine as on the green plains of Sambre?) 

— they had' sought to get a Hollandais last winter in 
Rouen ; but these cost fifteen francs apiece — picture it 

— fifteen francs I 

^^ Pour un tout petit oiseau — For quite a little bird," 
added the husband. 

As I continued to admire, the apologetics died away, 
and the good people began to brag of their barge and 
their happy condition in life, as if they had been Emperor 
and Empress of the Indies. It was, in the Scotch phfase, 
a good hearing, and put me in good-humour with the 
world. If people knew what an inspiriting thing it is to 
hear a man boasting, so long as he boasts of what he really 
has, I believe they would do it more freely and with a 
better grace. 



Sambre and Oise Canal 55 

They began to ask about our voyage. You should 
have seen how they sympathised. They seemed half 
ready to give up their barge and follow us. But these 
canaletti are only gipsies semi-domesticated. The semi- 
domestication came out in rather a pretty form. Sud- 
denly Madame's brow darkened. ^^Ce pendant, ^^ she be- 
gan, and then stopped ; and then began again by asking 
me if I were single. 

''Yes," said I. 

"And your friend who went by just now?" 

He also was unmarried. 

Oh, then, all was well. She could not have wives left 
alone at home ; but since there were no wives in the 
question, we were doing the best we could. 

"To see about one in the world," said the husband, 
"f/ n^y a que qa — there is nothing else worth while. A 
man, look you, who sticks in his own village like a bear," 
he went on, "very well, he sees nothing. And then death 
is the end of all. And he has seen nothing." 

Madame reminded her husband of an Englishman who 
had come up this canal in a steamer. 

"Perhaps Mr. Moens in the Ytene,'" I suggested. 

"That's it," assented the husband. "He had his wife 
and family with him, and servants. He came ashore at 
all the locks and asked the name of the villages, whether 
from boatmen or lockkeepers ; and then he wrote, wrote 
them down. Oh, he wrote enormously ! I suppose it 
was a wager." 

A wager was a common enough explanation for our own 
exploits, but it seemed an original reason for taking notes. 



THE OlSE IN FLOOD 

Before nine next morning the two canoes were in- 
stalled on a light country cart at Etreux; and we were 
soon following them along the side of a pleasant valley 
full of hop-gardens and poplars. Agreeable villages lay 
here and there on the slope of the hill : notably, Tupigny, 
with the hop-poles hanging their garlands in the very 
street, and the houses clustered with grapes. There was 
a faint enthusiasm on our passage ; weavers put their 
heads to the windows ; children cried out in ecstasy at 
sight of the two ^^ hosities' ' — barqiiettes ; and bloused 
pedestrians, who were acquainted with our charioteer, 
jested with him on the nature of his freight. 

We had a shower or two, but light and flying. The air 
was clean and sweet among all these green fields and 
green things growing. There was not a touch of autumn 
in the weather. And when, at Vadencourt, we launched 
from a little lawn opposite a mill, the sun broke forth and 
set all the leaves shining in the valley of the Oise. 

The river was swollen with the loag rains. From Vad- 
encourt all the way to Origny it ran with ever-quickening 
speed, taking fresh heart at each mile, and racing as 
though it already smelt the sea. The water was yellow 
and turbulent, swung with an angry eddy among half-sub- 
merged willows, and made an angry clatter along stony 
shores. The course kept turning and turning in a nar- 
row and well-timbered valley. Now the river would ap- 

56 



The Oise In Flood 57 

proach the side, and run gliding along the chalky base of 
the hill, and show us a few open colza fields among the 
trees. Now it would skirt the garden-walls of houses, 
where we might catch a glimpse through a doorway, and 
see a priest pacing in the checkered sunlight. Again, the 
foliage closed so thickly in front that there seemed to be 
no issue ; only a thicket of willows overtopped by elms 
and poplars, under which the river ran flush and fleet, 
and where a kingfisher flew past like a piece of the blue 
sky. On these different manifestations the sun poured its 
clear and catholic looks. The shadows lay as solid on 
the swift surface of the stream as on the stable meadows. 
The light sparkled golden in the dancing poplar leaves, 
and brought the hills into communion with our eyes. 
And all the while the river never stopped running or took 
breath ; and the reeds along the whole valley stood shiv- 
ering from top to toe. 

There should be some myth (but if there is, I know it 
not) founded on the shivering of the reeds. There are 
not many things in nature more striking to man's eye. 
It is such an eloquent pantomime of terror; and to see 
such a number of terrified creatures taking sanctuary in 
every nook along the shore is enough to infect a silly 
human with alarm. Perhaps they are only acold, and 
no wonder, standing waist deep in the stream. Or, per- 
haps, they have never got accustomed to the speed and 
fury of the river's flux, or the miracle of its continuous 
body. Pan once played upon their forefathers ; and so, 
by the hands of his river, he still plays upon these later 
generations down all the valley of the Oise ; and plays the 
same air, both sweet and shrill, to tell us of the beauty 
and the terror of the world. 



S8 An Inland Voyage 

The canoe was like a leaf in the current. It took it 
up and shook it, and carried it masterfully away, like a 
Centaur carrying off a nymph. To keep some command 
on our direction required hard and diligent plying of the 
paddle. The river was in such a hurry for the sea ! 
Every drop of water ran in a panic, like so many people 
in a frightened crowd. But what crowd was ever so 
numerous or so single-minded? All the objects of sight 
went by at a dance measure ; the eyesight raced with the 
racing river; the exigencies of every moment kept the 
pegs screwed so tight that our being quivered like a well- 
tuned instrument, and the blood shook off its lethargy, 
and trotted through all the highways and byways of 
the veins and arteries, and in and out of the heart, as if 
circulation were but a holiday journey and not the daily 
moil of threescore years and ten. The reeds might nod 
their heads in warning, and with tremulous gestures tell 
how the river was as cruel as it was strong and cold, and 
how death lurked in the eddy underneath the willows. 
But the reeds had to stand where they were; and those 
who stand still are always timid advisers. As for us, we 
could have shouted aloud. If this lively and beautiful 
river were, indeed, a thing of death's contrivance, the old 
ashen rogue had famously outwitted himself with us. I 
was living three to the minute. I was scoring points 
against him every stroke of my paddle, every turn of the 
stream. I have rarely had better profit of my life. 

For I think we may look upon our little private war 
with death somewhat in this light. If a man knows he 
will sooner or later be robbed upon a journey, he will have 
a bottle of the best in every inn, and look upon all his 
extravagances as so much gained upon the thieves. And 



The Olse In Flood 59 

above all, where, instead of simply spending, he makes 
a profitable investment for some of his money, when it 
will be out of risk of loss. So every bit of brisk living, 
and above all when it is healthful, is just so much gained 
upon the wholesale filcher, death. We shall have the 
less in our pockets, the more in our stomachs, when he 
cries. Stand and deliver. A swift stream is a favourite 
artifice of his, and one that brings him in a comfortable 
thing per annum ; but when he and I come to settle our 
accounts I shall whistle in his face for these hours upon 
the upper Oise. 

Towards afternoon we got fairly drunken with the sun- 
shine and the exhilaration of the pace. We could no longer 
contain ourselves and our content. The canoes were too 
small for us ; we must be out and stretch ourselves on 
shore. And so in a green meadow we bestowed our limbs 
on the grass, and smoked deifying tobacco, and proclaimed 
the world excellent. It was the last good hour of the day, 
and I dwell upon it with extreme complacency. 

On one side of the valley, high upon the chalky summit 
of the hill, a ploughman with his team appeared and 
disappeared at regular intervals. At each revelation he 
stood still for a few seconds against the sky, for all the 
world (as the Cigarette declared) like a toy Burns who had 
just ploughed up the Mountain Daisy. He was the 
only living thing within view, unless we are to count the 
river. 

On the other side of the valley a group of red roofs and 
a belfry showed among the foliage. Thence some inspired 
bell-ringer made the afternoon musical on a chime of 
bells. There was something very sweet and taking in 
the air he played, and we thought we had never heard bells, 



6o An Inland Voyage 

speak so intelligibly or sing so melodiously as these. It 
must have been to some such measure that the spinners 
and the young maids sang, ''Come away, Death," in the 
Shakespearian Illyria. There is so often a threatening 
note, something blatant and metallic, in the voice of 
bells, that I believe we have fully more pain than pleasure 
from hearing them ; but these, as they sounded abroad, 
now high, now low, now with a plaintive cadence that 
caught the ear like the burden of a popular song, were 
always moderate and tunable, and seemed to fall in with 
the spirit of still, rustic places, like the noise of a water- 
fall or the babble of a rookery in spring. I could have 
asked the bell-ringer for his blessing, good, sedate old 
man, who swung the rope so gently to the time of his 
meditations. I could have blessed the priest or the heri- 
tors, or whoever may be concerned with such affairs in 
France, who had left these sweet old bells to gladden the 
afternoon, and not held meetings, and made collections, 
and had their names repeatedly printed in the local paper, 
to rig up a peal of brand-new, brazen, Birmingham-hearted 
substitutes, who should bombard their sides to the provo- 
cation of a brand-new bell-ringer, and fill the echoes of 
the valley with terror and riot. 

At last the bells ceased, and with their note the sun 
withdrew. The piece was at an eno ; shadow and silence 
possessed the valley of the Oise. We took to the paddle 
with glad hearts, like people who have sat out a noble 
performance and return to work. The river was more 
dangerous here ; it ran swifter, the eddies were more 
sudden and violent. All the way down we had had our 
fill of difficulties. Sometimes it was a weir which could 
be shot, sometimes one so shallow and full of stakes that 



The Oise in Flood 



6i 



we must withdraw the boats from the water and ■ carry 
them round. But the chief sort of obstacle was a conse- 
quence of the late high winds. Every two or three hun- 
dred yards a tree had fallen across the river, and usually 
involved more than another in its fall. Often there was 
free water at the end, and we could steer round the leafy 
promontory and hear the water sucking and bubbling 




The Refectory at the Rear of Noyon Cathedral (See page 92) 

among the twigs. ^ Often, again, when the tree reached 
from bank to bank, there was room, by lying close, to 
shoot through underneath, canoe and all. Sometimes it 
was necessary to get out upon the trunk itself and pull 
the boats across; and sometimes, where the stream was 
too impetuous for this, there was nothing for it but to 
land and ''carry over." This made a fine series of 



62 An Inland Voyage 

accidents in the day's career, and kept us aware of 
ourselves. 

Shortly after our re-embarkation, while I was leading 
by a long way, and still full of a noble, exulting spirit in 
honour of the sun, the swift pace, and the church bells, 
the river made one of its leonine pounces round a corner, 
and I was aware of another fallen tree within a stone-cast. 
I had my back-board down in a trice, and aimed for a 
place where the trunk seemed high enough above the 
water, and the branches not too thick to let me slip be- 
low. When a man has just vowed eternal brotherhood 
with the universe he is not in a temper to take great de- 
terminations coolly, and this, which might have been a 
very important determination for me, had not been taken 
under a happy star. The tree caught me about the chest, 
and while I was yet struggling to make less of myself and 
get through, the river took the matter out of my hands 
and bereaved me of my boat. The Arethusa swung 
round broadside on, leaned over, ejected so much of me 
as still remained on board, and, thus disencumbered, 
whipped under the tree, righted, and went merrily away 
down stream. 

I do not know how long it was before I scrambled on 
to the tree to which I was left clinging, but it was longer 
than I cared about. My thoughts were of a grave and 
almost sombre character, but I still clung to my paddle. 
The stream ran away with my heels as fast as I could 
pull up my shoulders, and I seemed, by the weight, to 
have all the water of the Oise in my trousers' pockets. 
You can never know, till you try it, what a dead pull a 
river makes against a man. Death himself had me by 
the heels, for this was his last ambuscade, and he must 



The Oise in Flood 63 

now join personally in the fray. And still I held to my 
paddle. At last I dragged myself on to my stomach on 
the trunk, and lay there a breathless sop, with a mingled 
sense of humour and injustice. A poor figure I must 
have presented to Burns upon the hill- top with his team. 
But there was the paddle in my hand. On my tomb, if 
ever I have one, I mean to get these words inscribed: 
"He clung to his paddle." 

The Cigarette had gone past awhile before; for, as I 
might have observed, if I had been a little less pleased 
with the universe at the moment, there was a clear way 
round the tree-top at the farther side. He had offered 
his services to haul me out, but, as I was then already 
on my elbows, I had declined and sent him down stream 
after the truant Arethusa. The stream was too rapid 
for a man to mount with one canoe, let alone two, upon 
his hands. So I crawled along the trunk to shore, and 
proceeded down the meadows by the riverside. I was so 
cold that my heart was sore. I had now an idea of my 
own why the reeds so bitterly shivered. I could have 
given any of them a lesson. The Cigarette remarked, 
facetiously, that he thought I was "taking exercise" as I 
drew near, until he made out for certain that I was only 
twittering with cold. I had a rub-down with a towel, 
and donned a dry suit from the india-rubber bag. But 
I was not my own man again for the rest of the voyage. 
I had a queasy sense that I wore my last dry clothes upon 
my body. The struggle had tired me; and, perhaps, 
whether I knew it or not, I was a little dashed in spirit. 
The devouring element in the universe had leaped out 
against me, in this green valley quickened by a running 
stream. The bells were all very pretty in their way, but 



64 An Inland Voyage 

I had heard some of the hollow notes of Pan's music. 
Would the wicked river drag me down by the heels, in- 
deed? and look so beautiful all the time? Nature's 
good-humour was only skin deep, after all. 

There was still a long way to go by the winding course 
of the stream, and darkness had fallen, and a late bell 
was ringing in Origny Sainte-Benoite when we arrived. 



ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 

A By-Day 

The next day was Sunday, and the church bells had 
little rest ; indeed, I do not think I remember anywhere 
else so great a choice of services as were here offered to 
the devout. And while the bells made merry in the sun- 
shine, all the world with his dog was out shooting among 
the beets and colza. 

In the morning a hawker and his wife went down the 
street at a foot-pace, singing to a very slow, lamentable 
music, ''O France, mes amours.''^ It brought everybody 
to the door ; and when our landlady called in the man to 
buy the words, he had not a copy of them left. She was 
not the first nor the second who had been taken with the 
song. There is something very pathetic in the love of 
the French people, since the war, for dismal patriotic 
music-making. I have watched a forester from Alsace 
while some one was singing '^ Les malheurs de la France," 
at a baptismal party in the neighbourhood of Fontaine- 
bleau. He arose from the table and took his son aside, 
close by where I was standing. "Listen, listen," he said, 
bearing on the boy's shoulder, "and remember this, my 
son." A little after he went out into the garden sud- 
denly, and I could hear him sobbing in the darkness. 

The humiliation of their arms and the loss of Alsace and 
Lorraine made a sore pull on the endurance of this sensi- 
tive people; and their hearts are still hot, not so much 

6s 



66 An Inland Voyage 

against Germany as against the Empire. In what other 
country will you find a patriotic ditty bring all the world 
into the street? But affliction heightens love; and we 
shall never know we are Englishmen until we have lost 
India. Independent America is still the cross of my ex- 
istence; I cannot think of Farmer George without ab- 
horrence ; and I never feel more warmly to my own land 
than when I see the stars and stripes, and remember what 
our empire might have been. 

The hawker's little book, which I purchased, was a 
curious mixture. Side by side with the flippant, rowdy 
nonsense of the Paris music-halls there were many pas- 
toral pieces, not without a touch of poetry, I thought, 
and instinct with the brave independence of the poorer 
class in France. There you might read how the wood- 
cutter gloried in his axe, and the gardener scorned to be 
ashamed of his spade. It was not very well written, 
this poetry of labour, but the pluck of the sentiment re- 
deemed what was weak or wordy in the expression. The 
martial and the patriotic pieces, on the other hand, were 
tearful, womanish productions one and all. The poet 
had passed under the Caudine Forks ; he sang for an army 
visiting the tomb of its old renown, with arms reversed; 
and sang not of victory, but of death. There was a num- 
ber in the hawker's collection called Consents Franqais^ 
which may rank among the most dissuasive war-lyrics on 
record. It w^ould not be possible to fight at all in such a 
spirit. The bravest conscript would turn pale if such a 
ditty were struck up beside him on the morning of battle ; 
and whole regiments would pile their arms to its tune. 

If Fletcher of Saltoun is in the right about the influence 
of national songs, you would say France was come to a 



Origny Sainte-Benoite 67 

poor pass. But the thing will work its own cure, and a 
sound-hearted and courageous people weary at length of 
snivelling over their disasters. Already Paul Deroulede 
has written some manly military verses. There is not 
much of the trumpet note in them, perhaps, to stir a 
man's heart in his bosom; they lack the lyrical elation, 
and move slowly ; but they are written in a grave, hon- 
ourable, stoical spirit, which should carry soldiers far in 
a good cause. One feels as if one would like to trust 
Deroulede with something. It will be happy if he can 
so far inoculate his fellow-countrymen that they may be 
trusted with their own future. And, in the meantime, 
here is an antidote to ''French Conscripts" and much 
other doleful versification. 

We had left the boats over night in the custody of one 
whom we shall call Carnival. I did not properly catch 
his name, and perhaps that was not unfortunate for 
him, as I am not in a position to hand him down with 
honour to posterity. To this person's premises we 
strolled in the course of the day, and found quite a little 
deputation inspecting the canoes. There was a stout 
gentleman with a knowledge of the river, which he 
seemed eager to impart. There was a very elegant young 
gentleman in a black coat, with a smattering of English, 
who led the talk at once to the Oxford and Cambridge 
boat race. And then there were three handsome girls 
from fifteen to twenty ; and an old gentleman in a blouse, 
with no teeth to speak of, and a strong country accent. 
Quite the pick of Origny, I should suppose. 

The Cigarette had some mysteries to perform with his 
rigging in the coach-house ; so I was left to do the parade 
single-handed. I found myself very much of a hero 



68 An Inland Voyage 

whether I would or not. The girls were full of little shud- 
derings over the dangers of our journey. And I thought 
it would be ungallant not to take my cue from the ladies. 
My mishap of yesterday, told in an offhand way, pro- 
duced a deep sensation. It was Othello over again, with 
no less than three Desdemonas and a sprinkling of sym- 
pathetic senators in the background. Never were the 
canoes more flattered, or flattered more adroitly. 

"It is like a violin," cried one of the girls in an ecstasy, 

"I thank you for the word, mademoiselle," said I. 
*'A11 the more since there are people who call out to me 
that it is like a cofhn." 

''Oh! but it is really like a violin. It is finished like 
a violin," she went on. 

''And polished like a violin," added a senator. 

"One has only to stretch the cords," concluded another, 
"and then tum-tumty-tum" ; he imitated the result 
with spirit. 

Was not this a graceful Httle ovation? Where this 
people finds the secret of its pretty speeches I cannot 
imagine, unless the secret should be no other than a sin- 
cere desire to please. But then no disgrace is attached 
in France to saying a thing neatly ; whereas in England, 
to talk like a book is to give in one's resignation to society. 

The old gentleman in the blouse ctole into the coach- 
house, and somewhat irrelevantly informed the Cigarette 
that he was the father of the three girls and four more; 
quite an exploit for a Frenchman. 

"You are very fortunate," answered the Cigarette 
politely. 

And the old gentleman, having apparently gained his 
point, stole away again. 



Orlgny Sainte-Benoite 69 

We all got very friendly together. The girls proposed 
to start with us on the morrow, if you please. And, jest- 
ing apart, every one was anxious to know the hour of our 
departure. Now, when you are going to crawl into your 
canoe from a bad launch, a crowd, however friendly, is 
undesirable, and so we told them not before twelve, and 
mentally determined to be off by ten at latest. 

Towards evening we went abroad again to post some 
letters. It was cool and pleasant ; the long village was 
quite empty, except for one or two urchins who followed 
us as they might have followed a menagerie; the hills 
and the tree-tops looked in from all sides through the 
clear air, and the bells were chiming for yet another 
service. 

Suddenly we sighted the three girls, standing, with a 
fourth sister, in front of a shop on the wide selvage of 
the roadway. We had been very merry with them a 
little while ago, to be sure. But what was the etiquette 
of Origny? Had it been a country road, of course we 
should have spoken to them ; but here, under the eyes of 
all the gossips, ought we to do even as much as bow? 
I consulted the Cigarette. 

"Look," said he. 

I looked. There were the four girls on the same spot ; 
but now four backs were turned to us, very upright and 
conscious. Corporal Modesty had given the word of 
command, and the well-disciplined picket had gone right- 
about-face like a single person. They maintained this 
formation all the while we were in sight ; but we heard 
them tittering among themselves, and the girl whom 
we had not met laughed with open mouth, and even 
looked over her shoulder at the enemy. I wonder was 



JO An Inland Voyage 

it altogether modesty after all, or in part a sort of country 
provocation ? 

As we were returning to the inn we beheld something 
floating in the ample field of golden evening sky, above 
the chalk cliffs and the trees that grow along their sum- 
mit. It was too high up, too large, and too steady for a 
kite; and, as it was dark, it could not be a star. For, 
although a star were as black as ink and as rugged as a 
walnut, so amply does the sun bathe heaven with radiance 
that it would sparkle like a point of light for us. The 
village was dotted with people with their heads in air; 
and the children were in a bustle all along the street and 
far up the straight road that climbs the hill, where we could 
still see them running in loose knots. It was a balloon, 
we learned, which had left St. Quentin at half-past five 
that evening. Mighty composedly the majority of the 
grown people took it. But we were English, and were 
soon running up the hill with the best. Being travellers 
ourselves in a small way, we would fain have seen these 
other travellers alight. 

The spectacle was over by the time we gained the top 
of the hill. All the gold had withered out of the sky, 
and the balloon had disappeared. Whither? I ask my- 
self ; caught up into the seventh heaven ? or come safely 
to land somewhere in that blue, Uiieven distance, into 
which the roadway dipped and melted before our eyes? 
Probably the aeronauts were already warming them- 
selves at a farm chimney, for they say it is cold in these 
unhomely regions of the air. The night fell swiftly. 
Roadside trees and disappointed sightseers, returning 
through the meadows, stood out in black against a margin 
of low, red sunset. It was cheerfuller to face the other 



Origny Sainte-Benoite 71 

way, and so down the hill we went, with a full moon, the 
colour of a melon, swinging high above the wooded 
valley, and the white cliffs behind us faintly reddened by 
the fire of the chalk-kilns. 

The lamps were lighted, and the salads were being made 
in Origny Sainte-Benoite by the river. 



ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 

The Company at Table 

Although we came late for dinner, the company at 
table treated us to sparkling wine. "That is how we are 
in France," said one. "Those who sit down with us are 
our friends." And the rest applauded. 

They were three altogether, and an odd trio to pass the 
Sunday with. 

Two of them were guests like ourselves, both men of 
the north. One ruddy, and of a full habit of body, with 
copious black hair and beard, the intrepid hunter of 
France, who thought nothing so small, not even a lark or 
minnow, but he might vindicate his prowess by its cap- 
ture. For such a great, healthy man, his hair flourish- 
ing like Samson's, his arteries running buckets of red blood, 
to boast of these infinitesimal exploits, produced a feeling 
of disproportion in the world, as when a steam-hammer is 
set to cracking nuts. The other was a quiet, subdued 
person, blond, and lymphatic, and sad, with something 
the look of a Dane : " Tristes tetes de Danois T^ as Gaston 
Lafenestre used to say. 

I must not let that name go by without a word for the 
best of all good fellows, now gone down into the dust. 
We shall never again see Gaston in his forest costume, — 
he was Gaston with all the world, in affection, not in dis- 
respect, — nor hear him wake the echoes of Fontainebleau 

72 



Orlgny Sainte-Benoite 73 

with the woodland horn. Never again shall his kind smile 
put peace among all races of artistic men, and make the 
Englishman at home in France. Never more shall the 
sheep, who were not more innocent at heart than he, sit 
all unconsciously for his industrious pencil. He died too 
early, at the very moment when he was beginning to put 
forth fresh sprouts and blossom into something worthy 
of himself ; and yet none who knew him will think he lived 
in vain. I never knew a man so little, for whom yet I 
had so much affection ; and I find it a good test of others, 
how much they had learned to understand and value him. 
His was, indeed, a good influence in life while he was still 
among us ; he had a fresh laugh ; it did you good to see 
him ; and, however sad he may have been at heart, he 
always bore a bold and cheerful countenance and took 
fortune's worst as it were the showers of spring. But 
now his mother sits alone by the side of Fontainebleau 
woods, where he gathered mushrooms in his hardy and 
penurious youth. 

Many of his pictures found their way across the Chan- 
nel; besides those which were stolen, when a dastardly 
Yankee left him alone in London with two English pence, 
and, perhaps, twice as many words of English. If any 
one who reads these lines should have a scene of sheep, 
in the manner of Jacques, with this fine creature's signa- 
ture, let him tell himself that one of the kindest and brav- 
est of men has lent a hand to decorate his lodging. There 
may be better pictures in the National Gallery ; but not 
a painter among the generations had a better heart. 
Precious in the sight of the Lord of humanity, the Psalms 
tell us, is the death of his saints. It had need to be pre- 
cious ; for it is very costly, when, by a stroke, a mother is 



74 An Inland Voyage 

left desolate, and the peace-maker and peace looker of 
a whole society is laid in the ground with Caesar and the 
Twelve Apostles. 

There is something lacking among the oaks of Fon- 
tainebleau ; and when the dessert comes in at Barbizon, 
people look to the door for a figure that is gone. 

The third of our companions at Origny was no less a 
person than the landlady's husband ; not properly the 
landlord, since he worked himself in a factory during the 
day, and came to his own house at evening as a guest ; 
a man worn to skin and bone by perpetual excitement, 
with baldish head, sharp features, and swift, shining eyes. 
On Saturday, describing some paltry adventure at a 
duck hunt, he broke a plate into a score of fragments. 
Whenever he made a remark he would look all round the 
table with his chin raised and a spark of green light in 
either eye, seeking approval. His wife appeared now 
and again in the doorway of the room, where she was 
superintending dinner, with a ''Henri, you forget your- 
self," or a "Henri, you can surely talk without making 
such a noise." Indeed, that was what the honest fellow 
could not do. On the most trifling matter his eyes kindled, 
his fist visited the table, and his voice rolled abroad in 
changeful thunder. I never saw such a petard of a man ; 
I think the devil was in him. He had two favourite ex- 
pressions, "It is logical," or illogical, as the case might 
be; and this other thrown out with a certain bravado 
as a man might unfurl a banner, at the beginning of many 
a long and sonorous story : " I am a proletarian, you see." 
Indeed, we saw it very well. God forbid that ever I 
should find him handling a gun in Paris streets. That 
will not be a good moment for the general public. 



Origny Sainte-Benoite 75 

I thought his two phrases very much represented the 
good and evil of his class, and, to some extent, of his 
country. It is a strong thing to say what one is, and 
not be ashamed of it ; even although it be in doubtful 
taste to repeat the statement too often in one evening. 
I should not admire it in a duke, of course ; but as times 
go the trait is honourable in a workman. On the other 
hand, it is not at all a strong thing to put one's reliance 
upon logic ; and our own logic particularly, for it is gen- 
erally wrong. We never know where we are to end if 
once we begin following words or doctors. There is an 
upright stock in a man's own heart that is trustier than 
any syllogism ; and the eyes, and the sympathies, and 
appetites know a thing or two that have never yet been 
stated in controversy. Reasons are as plentiful as black- 
berries ; and, like fisticuffs, they serve impartially with 
all sides. Doctrines do not stand or fall 'by their proofs 
and are only logical in so far as they are cleverly put. 
An able controversialist no more than an able general 
demonstrates the justice of his cause. But France is all 
gone wandering after one or two big words ; it will take 
some time before they can be satisfied that they are no 
more than words, however big; and, when once that is 
done, they will perhaps find logic less diverting. 

The conversation opened with details of the day's 
shooting. When all the sportsmen of a village shoot 
over the village territory pro indiviso, it is plain that 
many questions of etiquette and priority must arise. 

"Here now," cried the landlord, brandishing a plate, 
''here is a field of beet-root. Well. Here am I, then. 
I advance, do I not? Eh hien! sacristi" ; and the state- 
ment, waxing louder, rolls off into a reverberation of 



76 An Inland Voyage 

oaths, the speaker glaring about for sympathy, and 
everybody nodding his head to him in the name of peace. 

The ruddy Northman told some tales of his own prowess 
in keeping order : notably one of a Marquis. 

"Marquis," I said, "if you take another step I fire 
upon you. You have committed a dirtiness, Marquis." 

Whereupon, it appeared, the Marquis touched his cap 
and withdrew. 

The landlord applauded noisily. "It was well done," 
he said. "He did all that he could. He admitted he 
was wrong." And then oath upon oath. He was no 
marquis-lover, either, but he had a sense of justice in him, 
this proletarian host of ours. 

From the matter of hunting, the talk veered into a 
general comparison of Paris and the country. The 
proletarian beat the table like a drum in praise of Paris. 
"What is Paris? Paris is the cream of France. There 
are no Parisians ; it is you, and I, and everybody who are 
Parisians. A man has eighty chances per cent to get on 
in the world in Paris." And he drew a vivid sketch of 
the workman in a den no bigger than a dog-hutch, making 
articles that were to go all over the world. "£/? bien, 
quoi, c'est magnifique, qal^'' cried he. 

The sad Northman interfered in praise of a peasant's 
life; he thought Paris bad for men and women. "Cen- 
trahsation," said he — 

But the landlord was at his throat in a moment. It 
was all logical, he showed him, and all magnificent. 
"What a spectacle! What a glance for an eye!" And 
the dishes reeled upon the table under a cannonade of 
blows. 

Seeking to make peace, I threw in a word in praise of 



Origny Salnte-Benoite 77 

the liberty of opinion in France. I could hardly have 
shot more amiss. There was an instant silence and a 
great wagging of significant heads. They did not fancy 
the subject, it was plain, but they gave me to understand 
that the sad Northman was a martyr on account of his 
views. "Ask him a bit," said they. "Just ask him." 

"Yes, sir," said he in his quiet way, answering me, 
although I had not spoken, "I am afraid there is less 
liberty of opinion in France than you may imagine." 
And with that he dropped his eyes and seemed to consider 
the subject at an end. 

Our curiosity was mightily excited at this. How, or 
why, or when was this lymphatic bagman martyred? 
We concluded at once it was on some religious question, 
and brushed up our memories of the Inquisition, which 
were principally drawn from Poe's horrid story, and the 
sermon in Tristram Shandy, I believe. 

On the morrow we had an opportunity of going further 
into the question; for when we rose very early to avoid 
a sympathising deputation at our departure, we found 
the hero up before us. He was breaking his fast on white 
wine and raw onions, in order to keep up the character 
of martyr, I conclude. We had a long conversation, 
and made out what we wanted in spite of his reserve. 
But here was a truly curious circumstance. It seems 
possible for two Scotchmen and a Frenchman to discuss 
during a long half-hour, and each nationality have a dif- 
ferent idea in view throughout. It was not till the very 
end that we discovered his heresy had been political, or 
that he suspected our mistake. The terms and spirit 
in which he spoke of his poHtical beliefs were, in our eyes, 
suited to religious beliefs. And vice versa. 



78 An Inland Voyage 

Nothing could be more characteristic of the two coun- 
tries. PoHtics are the rehgion of France; as Nanty 

Ewart would have said, "A d d bad religion," while 

we, at home, keep most of our bitterness for all differences 
about a hymn-book or a Hebrew word which, perhaps, 
neither of the parties can translate. And perhaps the 
misconception is typical of many others that may never 
be cleared up ; not only between people of different race, 
but between those of different sex. 

As for our friend's martyrdom, he was a Communist, 
or perhaps only a Communard, which is a very different 
thing, and had lost one or more situations in consequence. 
I think he had also been rejected in marriage ; but per- 
haps he had a sentimental way of considering business 
which deceived me. He was a mild, gentle creature, 
anyway, and I hope he has got a better situation and 
married a more suitable wife since then. 



DOWN THE OISE 

To Moy 

Carnival notoriously cheated us at first. Finding 
us easy in our ways, he regretted having let us off so 
cheaply, and, taking me aside, told me a cock-and-bull 
story, with the moral of another five francs for the nar- 
rator. The thing was palpably absurd; but I paid up, 
and at once dropped all friendliness of manner and kept 
him in his place as an inferior, with freezing British dignity. 
He saw in a moment that he had gone too far and killed 
a willing horse ; his face fell ; I am sure he would have 
refunded if he could only have thought of a decent pre- 
text. He wished me to drink with him, but I would none 
of his drinks. He grew pathetically tender in his profes- 
sions, but I walked beside him in silence or answered 
him in stately' courtesies, and, when we got to the land- 
ing-place, passed the word in English slang to the Cigarette. 

In spite of the false scent we had thrown out the day 
before, there must have been fifty people about the 
bridge. We were as pleasant as we could be with all 
but Carnival. We said good-bye, shaking hands with the 
old gentleman who knew the river and the young gentle- 
man who had a smattering of English, but nevei* a word 
for Carnival. Poor Carnival, here was a humiliation. 
He who had been so much identified with the canoes, 
who had given orders in our name, who had shown off 
the boats and even the boatmen like a private exhibition 
of his own, to be now so publicly shamed by the lions of 
his caravan ! I never saw anybody look more crestfallen 

79 



8o An Inland Voyage 

than be. He hung in the background, coming timidly 
forward ever and again as be thought he saw some symp- 
tom of a relenting humour and falling hurriedly back 
when he encountered a cold stare. Let us hope it will be 
a lesson to him. 

I would not have mentioned Carnival's peccadillo had 
not the thing been so uncommon in France. This, for 
instance, was the only case of dishonesty or even sharp 
practice in our whole voyage. We talk very much about 
our honesty in England. It is a good rule to be on your 
guard wherever you hear great professions about a very 
Uttle piece of virtue. If the English could only hear how 
they are spoken of abroad, they might confine themselves 
for awhile to remedying the fact, and perhaps even when 
that was done, give us fewer of their airs. 

The young ladies, the graces of Origny, were not present 
at our start ; but when we got round to the second bridge, 
behold, it was black with sight-seers! We were loudly 
cheered, and for a good way below young lads and lasses 
ran along the bank, still cheering. What with current 
and paddling, we were flashing along like swallows. It 
was no joke to keep up with us upon the woody shore. 
But the girls picked up their skirts, as if they were sure 
they had good ankles, and followed until their breath 
was out. The last to weary were the three graces and a 
couple of companions; and just as they, too, had had 
enough, the foremost of the three leaped upon a tree- 
stump and kissed her hand to the canoeists. Not Diana 
herself, although this was more of a Venus, after all, 
could have done a graceful thing more gracefully. '^ Come 
back again!" she cried; and all the others echoed her; 
and the hills about Origny repeated the words, 'Xome 



Down the Olse 8 1 

back." But the river had us round an angle in a twinkling, 
and we were alone with the green trees and running water. 
Come back? There is no coming back, young ladies, 
on the impetuous stream of life. 

The merchant bows unto the seaman's star, 
The ploughman from the sun his season takes. 

And we must all set our pocket watches by the clock of 
fate. There is a headlong, forthright tide, that bears 
away man with his fancies like straw, and runs fast in 
time and space. It is full of curves like this, your wind- 
ing river of the Oise ; and lingers and returns in pleasant 
pastorals; and yet, rightly thought upon, never returns 
at all. For though it should revisit the same acre of 
meadow in the same hour, it will have made an ample 
sweep between whiles; many little streams will have 
fallen in ; many exhalations risen towards the sun ; and 
even although it were the same acre, it will not be the 
same river Oise. And thus, O graces of Origny, although 
the wandering fortune of my life should carry me back 
again to where you await death's whistle by the river, 
that will not be the old I who walks the streeet; and 
those wives and mothers, say, will those be you? 

There was never any mistake about the Oise, as a 
matter of fact. In these upper reaches it was still in a 
prodigious hurry for the sea. It ran so fast and merrily, 
through all the windings of its channel, that I strained my 
thumb fighting with the rapids, and had to paddle all the 
rest of the way with one hand turned up. Sometimes it 
had to serve mills ; and being still a little river, ran very 
dry and shallow in the meanwhile. We had to put our 
legs out of the boat, and shove ourselves off the sand of 



82 An Inland Voyage 

the bottom with our feet. And still it went on its way sing- 
ing among the poplars, and making a green valley in the 
world. After a good woman, and a good book, and to- 
bacco, there is nothing so agreeable on earth as a river. 
I forgave it its attempt on my life ; which was, after all, 
one part owing to the unruly winds of heaven that had 
blown down the tree, one part to my own mismanagement, 
and only a third part to the river itself, and that not out 
of malice, but from its great preoccupation over its own 
business of getting to the sea. A difficult business, too; 
for the detours it had to make are not to be counted. 
The geographers seem to have given up the attempt; 
for I found no map represent the infinite contortion of its 
course. A fact will say more than any of them. After 
we had been some hours, three, if I mistake not, flitting 
by the trees at this smooth, breakneck gallop, when we 
came upon a hamlet and asked where we were, we had 
got no further than four kilometres (say two miles and a 
half) from Origny. If it were not for the honour of the 
thing (in the Scotch saying), we might almost as well have 
been standing still. 

We lunched on a meadow inside a parallelogram of 
poplars. The leaves danced and prattled in the wind 
all around about us. The river hurried on meanwhile, 
and seemed to chide at our delay. Little we cared. The 
river knew where it was going ; not so we ; the less our 
hurry, where we found good quarters, and a pleasant 
theatre for a pipe. At that hour stock-brokers were 
shouting in Paris Bourse for two or three per cent ; but 
we minded them as little as the sliding stream, and sac- 
rificed a hecatomb of minutes to the gods of tobacco and 
digestion. Hurry is the resource of the faithless. Where 



Down the Oise 83 

a man can trust his own heart, and those of his friends, to- 
morrow is as good as to-day. And if he die in the mean- 
while, why, then, there he dies, and the question is solved. 

We had to take to the canal in the course of the after- 
noon ; because where it crossed the river there was, not 
a bridge, but a siphon. If it had not been for an excited 
fellow on the bank we should have paddled right into the 
siphon, and thenceforward not paddled any more. We 
met a man, a gentleman, on the tow-path, who was much 
interested in our cruise. And I was witness to a strange 
seizure of lying suffered by the Cigarette; who, because his 
knife came from Norway, narrated all sorts of adventures 
in that country, where he has never been. He was quite 
feverish at the end, and pleaded demoniacal possession. 

Moy (pronounce Moy) was a pleasant little village, 
gathered round a chateau in a moat. The air was per- 
fumed with hemp from neighbouring fields. At the Golden 
Sheep we found excellent entertainment. German shells 
from the siege of La Fere, Niirnberg figures, gold-fish in a 
bowl, and all manner of knick-knacks, embelMshed the 
public room. The landlady was a stout, plain, short- 
sighted, motherly body, with something not far short of 
a genius for cookery. She had a guess of her excellence 
herself. After every dish was sent in, she would come 
and look on at the dinner for awhile, with puckered, 
blinking eyes. "C'est bon, n'est-ce pas?'' she would say; 
and, when she had received a proper answer, she disap- 
peared into the kitchen. That common French dish, 
partridge and cabbages, became a new thing in my eyes 
at the Golden Sheep ; and many subsequent dinners have 
bitterly disappointed me in consequence. Sweet was 
our rest in the Golden Sheep at Moy. 



LA FERE OF CURSED MEMORY 

We lingered in Moy a good part of the day, for we were 
fond of being philosophical, and scorned long journeys 
and early starts on principle. The place, moreover, in- 
vited to repose. People in elaborate shooting-costumes 
sallied from the chateau with guns and game-bags ; and 
this was a pleasure in itself, to remain behind while these 
elegant pleasure-seekers took the first of the morning. 
In this way all the world may be an aristocrat, and play 
the duke among marquises, and the reigning monarch 
among dukes, if he will only outvie them in tranquillity. 
An imperturbable demeanour comes from perfect patience. 
Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go 
on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, 
like a clock during a thunder-storm. 

We made a very short day of it to La Fere ; but the dusk 
was falling and a small rain had begun before we stowed 
the boats. La Fere is a fortified town in a plain, and has 
two belts of rampart. Between the first and the second 
extends a region of waste land and cultivated patches. 
Here and there along the wayside were posters forbidding 
trespass in the name of military engineering. At last a 
second gateway admitted us to the town itself. Lighted 
windows looked gladsome, whiffs of comfortable cookery 
came abroad upon the air. The town was full of the 
military reserve, out for the French Autumn manoeuvres, 
and the reservists walked speedily and wore their for- 



La Fere of Cursed Memory 85 

midable great-coats. It was a fine night to be within 
doors over dinner, and hear the rain upon the windows. 

The Cigarette and I could not sufficiently congratulate 
each other on the prospect, for we had been told there was 
a capital inn at La Fere. Such a dinner as we were going 
to eat ! such beds as we were to sleep in ! and all the 
while the rain raining on houseless folk over all the pop- 
lared country-side. It made our mouths water. The 
inn bore the name of some woodland animal, stag, or 
hart, or hind, I forget which. But I shall never forget 
how spacious and how eminently habitable it looked as 
we drew near. The carriage entry was lighted up not 
by intention, but from the mere superfluity of fire and 
candle in the house. A rattle of many dishes came to our 
ears ; we sighted a great field of tablecloth ; the kitchen 
glowed like a forge and smelt like a garden of things to eat. 

Into this, the inmost shrine and physiological heart of 
a hostelry, with all its furnaces in action and all its dressers 
charged with viands, you are now to suppose us making 
our triumphal entry, a pair of .damp rag-and-bone men, 
each with a limp india-rubber bag upon his arm. I do 
not believe I have a sound view of that kitchen ; I saw 
it through a sort of glory, but it seemed to me crowded 
with the snowy caps of cookmen, who all turned round 
from their saucepans and looked at us with surprise. 
There was no doubt about the landlady, however; there 
she was, heading her army, a flushed, angry woman, full 
of affairs. Her I asked politely — too politely, thinks 
the Cigarette — if we could have beds, she surveying us 
coldly from head to foot. 

"You will find beds in the suburb," she remarked. 
"We are too busy for the like of you." 



86 An Inland Voyage 

If we could make an entrance, change our clothes, and 
order a bottle of wine, I felt sure we could put things 
right; so said I, "If we cannot sleep, we may at least 
dine," — and was for depositing my bag. 

What a terrible convulsion of nature was Jthat which 
followed in the landlady's face ! She made a run at us 
and stamped her foot. 

"Out with you, — out of the door!" she screeched. 
'^Sortez! sortez! sortez par la porteT' 

I do not know how it happened, but next moment we 
were out in the rain and darkness, and I was cursing be- 
fore the carriage entry like a disappointed mendicant. 
Where were the boating-men of Belgium? where the 
judge and his good wines? and where the graces of 
Origny? Black, black was the night after the firelit 
kitchen, but what was that to the blackness in our heart? 
This was not the first time that I have been refused a 
lodging. Often and often have I planned what I should 
do if such a misadventure happened to me again. And 
nothing is easier to plan.. But to put in execution, with 
the heart boiling at the indignity? Try it; try it only 
once, and tell me what you did. 

It is all very fine to talk about tramps and morality. 
Six hours of police surveillance (such as I have had) or 
one brutal rejection from an inn door change your views 
upon the subject like a course of lectures. As long as 
you keep in the upper regions, with all the world bowing 
to you as you go, social arrangements have a very hand- 
some air; but once get under the wheels and you wish 
society were at the devil. I will give most respectable 
men a fortnight of such a life, and then I will offer them 
twopence for what remains of their morality. 



La Fere of Cursed Memory 87 

For my part, when I was turned out of the Stag, or tlie 
Hind, or whatever it was, I would have set the temple of 
Diana on fire if it had been handy. There was no crime 
complete enough to express my disapproval of human 
institutions. As for the Cigarette^ I never knew a man so 
altered. "We have been taken for pedlars again," said 
he. ''Good God, what it must be to be a pedlar in 
reality!" He particularised a complaint for every joint 
in the landlady's body. Timon was a philanthropist 
alongside of him. And then, when he was at the top 
of his maledictory bent, he would suddenly break away 
and begin whimperingly to commiserate the poor. ''I 
hope to God," he said, — and I trust the prayer was an- 
swered, — "that I shall never be uncivil to a pedlar." 
Was this the imperturbable Cigarette ? This, this was he. 
Oh, change beyond report, thought, or belief ! 

Meantime the heaven wept upon our heads ; and the 
windows grew brighter as the night increased in darkness. 
We trudged in and out of La Fere streets ; we saw shops, 
and private houses where people were copiously dining; 
we saw stables where carters' nags had plenty of fodder 
and clean straw; we saw no end of reservists, who were 
very sorry for themselves this wet night, I doubt not, 
and yearned for their country homes ; but had they not 
each man his place in La Fere barracks? And we, what 
had we? 

There seemed to be no other inn in the whole town. 
People gave us directions, which we followed as best we 
could, generally with the effect of bringing us out again 
upon the scene of our disgrace. We were very sad people 
indeed, by the time we had gone all over La Fere; and 
the Cigarette had already made up his mind to lie under 



88 An Inland Voyage 

2i'pop\sir and sup off a loaf of bread. But right at the 
other end, the house next the town gate was full of light 
and bustle. " Bazin, aubergiste, loge a pied,^^ was the 
sign. ^^ A la Croix de Malte.^' There were we received. 

The room was full of noisy reservists drinking and 
smoking ; and we were very glad indeed when the drums 
and bugles began to go about the streets, and one and 
all had to snatch shakoes and be off for the barracks. 

Bazin was a tall man, running to fat ; soft-spoken, 
with a delicate, gentle face. We asked him to share our 
wine ; but he excused himself, having pledged reservists 
all day long. This was a very different type of the work- 
man-innkeeper from the bawling, disputatious fellow at 
Origny. He also loved Paris, where he had worked as a 
decorative painter in his youth. There were such oppor- 
tunities for self-instruction there, he said. And if any one 
has read Zola's description of the workman's marriage 
party visiting the Louvre they would do well to have heard 
Bazin by way of antidote. He had delighted in the 
museums in his youth. ''One sees there little miracles 
of work," he said ; " that is what makes a good workman ; 
it kindles a spark." We asked him how he managed in 
La Fere. "I am married," he said, "and I have my 
pretty children. But frankly, it is no life at all. From 
morning to night I pledge a pack of good-enough fellows 
who know nothing." 

It faired as the night went on, and the moon came out 
of the clouds. We sat in front of the door, talking softly 
with Bazin. At the guardhouse opposite the guard was 
being for ever turned out, as trains of field artillery kept 
clanking in out of the night or patrols of horsemen trotted 
by in their cloaks. Madame Bazin came out after 



La Fere of Cursed Memory 89 

awhile ; she was tired with her day's work, I suppose ; 
and she nestled up to her husband and laid her head upon 
his breast. He had his arm about her and kept gently 
patting her on the shoulder, I think Bazin was right, 
and he was really married. Of how few people can the 
same be said ! 

Little did the Bazins know how much they served us. 
We were charged for candles, for food and drink, and for 
the beds we slept in. But there was nothing in the bill 
for the husband's pleasant talk; nor for the pretty 
spectacle of their married life. And there was yet another 
item uncharged. For these people's politeness really 
set us up again in our own esteem. We had a thirst for 
consideration ; the sense of insult was still hot in our 
spirits; and civil usage seemed to restore us to our po- 
sition in the world. 

How little we pay our way in life ! Although we have 
our purses continually in our hand, the better part of 
service goes still unrewarded. But I like to fancy that a 
grateful spirit gives as good as it gets. Perhaps the 
Bazins knew how much I liked them ? perhaps they, also, 
were healed of some slights by the thanks that I gave 
them in my manner? 



DOWN THE OISE 

Through the Golden Valley 

Below La Fere the river runs through a piece of open 
pastoral country; green, opulent, loved by breeders; 
called the Golden Valley. In wide sweeps, and with a 
swift and equable gallop, the ceaseless stream of water 
visits and makes green the fields. Kine, and horses, 
and little humorous donkeys browse together in the 
meadows, and come down in troops to the riverside to 
drink. They make a strange feature in the landscape; 
above all when startled, and you see them galloping to 
and fro, with their incongruous forms and faces. It 
gives a feeling as of great, unfenced pampas, and the herds 
of wandering nations. There were hills in the distance 
upon either hand ; and on one side, the river sometimes 
bordered on the wooded spurs of Coucy and St. Gobain. 

The artillery were practising at La Fere ; and soon the 
cannon of heaven joined in that loud play. Two con- 
tinents of cloud met and exchanged salvos overhead ; 
while all round the horizon we could see sunshine and 
clear air upon the hills. What with the guns and the 
thunder, the herds were all frightened in the Golden 
Valley. We could see them tossing their heads, and run- 
ning to and fro in timorous indecision ; and when they 
had made up their minds, and the donkey followed the 
horse, and the cow was after the donkey, we could hear 
their hoofs thundering abroad over the meadows. It had 
a martial sound, like cavalry charges. And altogether, 

90 



Down the Olse 91 

as far as the ears are concerned, we had a very rousing 
battle piece performed for our amusement. 

At last, the guns and the thunder dropped off; the 
sun shone on the wet meadows ; the air was scented with 
the breath of rejoicing trees and grass ; and the river 
kept unweariedly carrying us on at its best pace. There 
was a manufacturing district about Chauny ; and after 
that the banks grew so high that they hid the adjacent 
country, and we could see nothing but clay sides, and one 
willow after another. Only here and there we passed by 
a village or a ferry, and some wondering child upon the 
bank would stare after us until we turned the corner. 
I dare say we continued to paddle in that child's dreams 
for many a night after. 

Sun and shower alternated like day and night, making 
the hours longer by their variety. When the showers 
were heavy I could feel each drop striking through my 
jersey to my warm skin ; and the accumulation of small 
shocks put me nearly beside myself. I decided I should 
buy a mackintosh at Noyon. It is nothing to get wet ; 
but the misery of these individual pricks of cold all over 
my body at the same instant of time made me flail the 
water with my paddle like a madman. The Cigarette 
was greatly amused by these ebullitions. It gave him 
something else to look at besides clay banks and willows. 

All the time the river stole away like a thief in straight 
places, or swung round corners with an eddy ; the willows 
nodded and were undermined all day long; the clay 
banks tumbled in ; the Oise, which had been so many 
centuries making the Golden Valley, seemed to have 
changed its fancy and be bent upon undoing its per- 
formance. What a number of things a river does by 
simply following Gravity in the innocence of its heart ! 



NOYON CATHEDRAL 

NoYON stands about a mile from the river, in a little 
plain surrounded by wooded hills, and entirely covers an 
eminence with its tile roofs, surmounted by a long, straight- 
backed cathedral with two stiff towers. As we got into 
the town, the tile roofs seemed to tumble up-hill one 
upon another, in the oddest disorder; but for all their 
scrambling they did not attain above the knees of the 
cathedral, which stood, upright and solemn, over all. 
As the streets drew near to this presiding genius, through 
the market-place under the Hotel de Ville, they grew 
emptier and more composed. Blank walls and shuttered 
windows were turned to the great edifice, and grass 
grew on the white causeway. ''Put off thy shoes from 
off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy 
ground." The Hotel du Nord, nevertheless, lights its 
secular tapers within a stone-cast of the church ; and we 
had the superb east end before our eyes all morning from 
the window of our bedroom. I have seldom looked on 
the east end of a church with more complete sympathy. 
As it flanges out in three wide terraces, and settles down 
broadly on the earth, it looks like the poop of some great 
old battle-ship. Hollow-backed buttresses carry vases, 
which figure for the stern lanterns. There is a roll in the 
ground, and the towers just appear above the pitch of 
the roof, as though the good ship were bowing lazily over 
an Atlantic swell. At any moment it might be a hun- 
dred feet away from you, climbing the next billow. At 

92 



Noyon Cathedral 



93 



any moment a window might open, and some old ad- 
miral thrust forth a cocked hat and proceed to take an 
observation. The old admirals sail the sea no longer; 
the old ships of battle are all broken up, and live only in 
pictures; but this, that was a church before ever they 
were thought upon, is still a church, and makes as brave 
an appearance by the Oise. The cathedral and the river 




The Cathedral at Noyon 



are probably the two oldest things for miles around; 
and certainly they have both a grand old age. 

The Sacristan took us to the top of one of the towers, 
and showed us the five bells hanging in their loft. From 
above the town was a tessellated pavement of roofs atid 
gardens; the old line of rampart was plainly traceable; 
and the Sacristan pointed out to us, far across the plain, 



94 • An Inland Voyage 

in a bit of gleaming sky between two clouds, the towers of 
Chateau Coucy. 

I find I never weary of great churches. It is my 
favourite kind of mountain scenery. Mankind was never 
so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral : a thing 
as single and specious as a statue to the first glance, and 
yet, on examination, as lively and interesting as a forest 
in detail. The height of spires cannot be taken by 
trigonometry; they measure absurdly short, but how 
tall they are to the admiring eye ! And where we have 
so many elegant proportions, growing one out of the 
other, and all together into one, it seems as if proportion 
transcended itself and became something different and 
more imposing. I could never fathom how a man dares 
to lift up his voice to preach in a cathedral. What is he 
to say that will not be an anti-climax? For though I 
have heard a considerable variety of sermons, I never 
yet heard one that was so expressive as a cathedral. 
Tis the best preacher itself, and preaches day and night ; 
not only telling you of man's art and aspirations in the 
past, but convicting your own soul of ardent sympathies ; 
or rather, like all good preachers, it sets you preaching to 
yourself, — and every man is his own doctor of divinity 
in the last resort. 

As I sat outside of the hotel in the course of the after- 
noon, the sweet, groaning thunder of the organ floated 
out of the church like a summons. I was not averse, 
liking the theatre so well, to sit out an act or two of the 
play, but I could never rightly make out the nature of 
the service I beheld. Four or five priests and as many 
choristers were singing Miserere before the high altar 
when I went in. There was no congregation but a few 



Noyon Cathedral 95 

old women on chairs and old men kneeling on the pave- 
ment. After awhile a long train of young girls, walk- 
ing two and two, each with a lighted taper in her hand, 
and all dressed in black with a white veil, came from be- 
hind the altar and began to descend the nave ; the four 
first carrying a Virgin and Child upon a table. The 
priests and choristers arose from their knees and fol- 
lowed after, singing ''Ave Mary" as they went. In this 
order they made the circuit of the cathedral, passing 
twice before me where I leaned against a pillar. The 
priest who seemed of most consequence was a strange- 
down-looking old man. He kept mumbling prayers with 
his lips ; but, as he looked upon me darkling, it did not 
seem as if prayer were uppermost in his heart. Two 
others, who bore the burden of the chant, were stout, 
brutal, military-looking men of forty, with bold, over- 
fed eyes ; they sang with some lustiness, and trolled forth 
''Ave Mary" like a garrison catch. The Uttle girls were 
timid and grave. As they footed slowly up the aisle, 
each one took a moment's glance at the Englishman ; arid 
the big nun who played marshal fairly stared him out 
of countenance. As for the choristers, from first to last 
they misbehaved as only boys can misbehave, and cruelly 
marred the performance with their antics. 

I understood a great deal of the spirit of what went on. 
Indeed, it would be difficult not to understand the Miserere, 
which I take to be the composition of an atheist. If it 
ever be a good thing to take such despondency to heart, 
the Miserere is the right music and a cathedral a fit scene. 
So far I am at one with the Cathohcs, — an odd name 
for them, after all! But why, in God's name, these 
holiday choristers? why these priests who steal wander- 



96 An Inland Voyage 

ing looks about the congregation while they feign to be 
at prayer? why this fat nun, who rudely arranges her 
procession and shakes delinquent virgins by the elbow? 
why this spitting, and snuf&ng, and forgetting of keys, 
and the thousand and one Httle misadventures that dis- 
turb a frame of mind, laboriously edified with chants 
and organings ? In any play-house reverend fathers may 
see what can be done with a little art, and how, to move 
high sentiments, it is necessary to drill the supernumeraries 
and have every stool in its proper place. 

One other circumstance distressed me. I could bear 
a Miserere myself, having had a good deal of open-air 
exercise of late; but I wished the old people somewhere 
else. It was neither the right sort of music nor the right 
sort of divinity for men and women who have come 
through most accidents by this time, and probably have 
an opinion of their own upon the tragic element in life. 
A person up in years can generally do his own Miserere 
for himself; although I notice that such an one often 
prefers Jubilate Deo for his ordinary singing. On the 
whole, the most religious exercise for the aged is probably 
to recall their own experience; so many friends dead, so 
many hopes disappointed, so many slips and stumbles, 
and withal so many bright days and smiling providences ; 
there is surely the matter of a very eloquent sermon in 
all this. 

On the whole I was greatly solemnised. In the little 
pictorial map of our whole Inland Voyage, which my 
fancy still preserves, and sometimes unrolls for the amuse- 
ment of odd moments, Noyon cathedral figures on a most 
preposterous scale, and must be nearly as large as the 
department. I can still see the faces of the priests as if 



Noyon Cathedral 97 

they were at my elbow, and hear Ave Maria, ora pro nobis 
sounding through the church. All Noyon is blotted out 
for me by these superior memories ; and I do not care to 
say more about the place. It was but a stack of brown 
roofs at the best, where I beheve people Hve very reputably, 
in a quiet way ; but the shadow of the church falls upon 
it when the sun is low, and the five bells are heard in all 
quarters, telling that the organ has begun. If ever I 
join the church of Rome I shall stipulate to be Bishop of 
Noyon on the Oise. 



DOWN THE OISE 

To Compiegne 

The most patient people grow weary at last with being 
continually wetted with rain; except, of course, in the 
Scotch Highlands, where there are not enough fine in- 
tervals to point the difference. That was like to be our 
case the day we left Noyon. I remember nothing of the 
voyage; it was nothing but clay banks, and willows, 
and rain; incessant, pitiless, beating rain; until we 
stopped to lunch at a little inn at Pimprez, where the 
canal ran very near the river. We were so sadly drenched 
that the landlady lit a few sticks in the chimney for our 
comfort ; there we sat in a steam of vapour lamenting our 
concerns. The husband donned a game-bag and strode 
out to shoot ; the wife sat in a far corner watching us. I 
»think we were worth looking at. We grumbled over the 
misfortune of La Fere; we forecast other La Feres in 
the future, — although things went better with the 
Cigarette for spokesman ; he had more aplomb altogether 
than I ; and a dull, positive way of approaching a land- 
lady that carried off the india-rubber bags. Talking of 
La Fere put us talking of the reservists. 

^'Reservery," said he, ''seems a pretty mean way to 
spend one's autumn holiday." 

"About as mean," returned I, dejectedly, "as canoeing." 

"These gentlemen travel for their pleasure?" asked 
the landlady, with unconscious irony. 



Down the Oise 99 

It was too much. The scales fell from our eyes. An- 
other wet day, it was determined, and we put the boats 
into the train. 

The weather took the hint. That was our last wetting. 
The afternoon faired up; grand clouds still voyaged in 
the sky, but now singly, and with a depth of blue around 
their path ; and a sunset, in the daintiest rose and gold, 
inaugurated a thick night of stars and a month of un- 
broken weather. At the same time, the river began to 
give us a better outlook into the country. The banks 
were not so high, the willows disappeared from along 
the margin, and pleasant hills stood all along its course 
and marked their profile on the sky. 

In a little while the canal, coming to its last lock, began 
to discharge its water houses on the Oise ; so that we had 
no lack of company to fear. Here were all our old friends ; 
the Deo Gratias of Conde and the Four Sons of Aymon 
journeyed cheerily down the stream along with us; we 
exchanged water-side pleasantries with the steersman 
perched among the lumber, or the driver hoarse with 
bawling to his horses ; and the children came and looked 
over the side as we paddled by. We had never known all 
this while how much we missed them ; but it gave us a 
fillip to see the smoke from their chimneys. 

A little below this junction we made another meeting 
of yet more account. For there we were joined by the 
Aisne, already a far-travelled river and fresh out of 
Champagne. Here ended the adolescence of the Oise; 
this was his marriage day ; thenceforward he had a stately, 
brimming march, conscious of his own dignity and sundry 
dams. He became a tranquil feature in the scene. The 
trees and towns saw themselves in him, as in a mirror. 



lOO An Inland Voyage 

He carried the canoes lightly on his broad breast ; there 
was no need to work hard against an eddy, but idleness 
became the order of the day, and mere straightforward 
dipping of the paddle, now on this side, now on that, 
without intelligence or effort. Truly we were coming 
into halcyon weather upon all accounts, and were floating 
towards the sea like gentlemen. 

We made Compiegne as the sun was going down : a 
fine profile of a town above the river. Over the bridge a 
regiment was parading to the drum. People loitered on 
the quay, some fishing, some looking idly at the stream. 
And as the two boats shot in along the water, we could 
see them pointing them out and speaking one to another. 
We landed at a floating lavatory, where the washerwomen 
were still beating the clothes. 



AT COMPIEGNE 

We put up at a big, bustling hotel in Compiegne, where 
nobody observed our presence. 

Reservery and general militarismus (as the Germans 
call it) was rampant. A camp of conical white tents with- 
out the town looked like a leaf out of a picture Bible; 
sword-belts decorated the walls of the cafes, and the streets 
kept sounding all day long with military music. It was 
not possible to be an Englishman and avoid a feeling of 
elation ; for the men who followed the drums were small 
and walked shabbily. Each man inclined at his own angle, 
and jolted to his own convenience as he went. There 
was nothing of the superb gait with which a regiment of 
tall Highlanders moves behind its music, solemn and 
inevitable, like a natural phenomenon. Who, that has 
seen it, can forget the drum-major pacing in front, the 
drummers' tiger-skins, the pipers' swinging plaids, the 
strange, elastic rhythm of the whole regiment footing it in 
time, and the bang of the drum when the brasses cease, 
and the shrill pipes taking up the martial story in their 
place ? 

A girl at school in France began to describe one of our 
regiments on parade to her French schoolmates, and as 
she went on, she told me the recollection grew so vivid, 
she became so proud to be the countrywoman of such 
soldiers, and so sorry to be in another country, that her 
voice failed her and she burst into tears. I have never 



I02 An Inland Voyage 

forgotten that girl, and I think she very nearly deserves a 
statue. To call her a young lady, with all its niminy as- 
sociations, would be to offer her an insult. She may 
rest assured of one thing, although she never should marry 
a heroic general, never see any great or immediate result 
of her life, she will not have lived in vain for her native 
land. 

But though French soldiers show to ill-advantage on 
parade, on the march they are gay, alert, and willing, like 
a troop of fox-hunters. I remember once seeing a com- 
pany pass through the forest of Fontainebleau, on the 
Chailly road, between the Bas Breau and the Reine 
Blanche. One fellow walked a little before the rest, and 
sang a loud, audacious marching song. The rest be- 
stirred their feet, and even swung their muskets in time. 
A young officer on horseback had hard ado to keep his 
countenance at the words. You never saw anything so 
cheerful and spontaneous as their gait; school-boys do 
not look more eagerly at hare and hounds ; and you would 
have thought it impossible to tire such willing marchers. 

My great delight in Compiegne was the town hall. I 
doted upon the town hall. It is a monument of Gothic 
insecurity, all turreted, and gargoyled, and slashed, and 
bedizened with half a score of architectural fancies. Some 
of the niches are gilt and painted ; and in a great square 
panel in the centre, in black relief on a gilt ground, Louis 
XII. rides upon a pacing horse, with hand on hip, and 
head thrown back. There is royal arrogance in every 
line of him ; the stirruped foot projects insolently from 
the frame; the eye is hard and proud; the very horse 
seems to be treading with gratification over prostrate 
serfs, and to have the breath of the trumpet in his nos- 





-^r>l^- 



feffF^ 










rf:i,ii.rTrrmCr|n^r 



If 




\ 






^fi¥:^i 



The Town Hall at Compiegne 



At Complegne 103 

trils. So rides for ever, on the front of the town hall, 
the good King Louis XII., the father of his people. 

Over the king's head, in the tall centre turret, appears 
the dial of a clock; and high above that, three little 
mechanical figures, each one with a hammer in his hand, 
whose business it is to chime out the hours, and halves, 
and quarters for the burgesses of Compiegne. The centre 
figure has a gilt breastplate; the two others wear gilt 
trunk-hose; and they all three have elegant, flapping 
hats like cavaliers. As the; quarter approaches they turn 
their heads and look knowingly one to the other; and 
then, kling go the three hammers on three little bells be- 
low. The hour follows, deep and sonorous, from the 
interior of the t'ower ; and the gilded gentlemen rest from 
their labours with contentment. 

I had a great deal of healthy pleasure from their 
manoeuvres, and took good care to miss as few perform- 
ances as possible; and I found that even the Cigarette, 
while he pretended to despise my enthusiasm, was more 
or less a devotee himself. There is something highly 
absurd in the exposition of such toys to the outrages of 
winter on a housetop. They would be more in keeping 
in a glass case before a Niirnberg clock. Above all, at 
night, when the children are abed, and even grown people 
are snoring under quilts, does it not seem impertinent to 
leave these gingerbread figures winking and tinkling to 
the stars and the rolling moon ? The gargoyles may fitly 
enough twist their ape-like heads ; fitly enough may the 
potentate bestride his charger, like a centurion in an old 
German print of the Via Dolorosa; but the toys should 
be put away in a box among some cotton, until the sun 
rises, and the children are abroad again to be amused. 



104 A^ Inland Voyage 

In Compiegne post-office a great packet of letters 
awaited us ; and the authorities were, for this occasion 
only, so polite as to hand them over upon application. 

In some way, our journey may be said to end with this 
letter-bag at Compiegne. The spell was broken. We 
had partly come home from that moment. 

No one should have any correspondence on a journey ; 
it is bad enough to have to write ; but the receipt of 
letters is the death of all holiday feeling. 

"Out of my country and myself I go." I wish to take 
a dive among new conditions for awhile, as into another 
element. I have nothing to do with my friends or my 
affections for the time; when I came away, I left my 
heart at home in a desk, or sent it forward with port- 
manteau to await me at my destination. After my 
journey is over, I shall not fail to read your admirable 
letters with the attention they deserve. But I have paid 
all this money, look you, and paddled all these strokes, 
for no other purpose than to be abroad ; and yet you keep 
me at home with your perpetual communications. You 
tug the string, and I feel that I am a tethered bird. You 
pursue me all over Europe with the little vexations that 
I came away to avoid. There is no discharge in the war 
of life, I am well aware ; but shall there not be so much 
as a week's furlough? 

We were up by six, the day we were to leave. They 
had taken so little note of us that I hardly thought they 
would have condescended on a bill. But they did, with 
some smart particulars, too; and we paid in a civilised 
manner to an uninterested clerk, and went out of that 
hotel, with the india-rubber bags, unremarked. No 
one cared to know about us. It is not possible to rise 



At Compiegne 105 

before a village; but Compiegne was so grown a town 
that it took its ease in the morning ; and we were up and 
away while it was still in dressing-gown and slippers. 
The streets were left to people washing door-steps ; no- 
body was in full dress but the cavaliers upon the town 
hall ; they were all washed with dew, spruce in their 
gilding, and full of intelligence and a sense of professional 
responsibility. Kling went they on the bells for the half- 
past six, as we went by. I took it kind of them to make 
me this parting compliment ; they never were in better 
form, not even at noon upon a Sunday. 

There was no one to see us off but the early washer- 
women, — early and late, — who were already beating 
the linen in their floating lavatory on the river. They 
were very merry and matutinal in their ways; plunged 
their arms boldly in, and seemed not to feel the shock. 
It would be dispiriting to me, this early beginning and 
first cold dabble of a most dispiriting day's work. But I 
believe they would have been as unwilling to change days 
with us as we could be to change with them. * They 
crowded to the door to watch us paddle away into the 
thin sunny mists upon the river; and shouted heartily 
after us till we were through the bridge. 



CHANGED TIMES 

There is a sense in which those mists never rose from 
off our journey; and from that time forth they He very 
densely in my note-book. As long as the Oise was a 
small, rural river it took us near by people's doors, and 
we could hold a conversation with natives in the riparian 
fields. But now that it had grown so wide, the life along 
shore passed us by at a distance. It was the same differ- 
ence as betw^een a great public highway and a country by- 
path that wanders in and out of cottage gardens. We 
now lay in towns, where nobody troubled us with ques- 
tions ; we had floated into civilised life, where people pass 
without salutation. In sparsely inhabited places we make 
all we can of each encounter ; but when it comes to a 
city, we keep to ourselves, and never speak unless we have 
trodden on a man's toes. In these waters we were no 
longer strange birds, and nobody supposed we had travelled 
farther than from the last town. I remember, when we 
came into L'Isle Adam, for instance, how we met dozens 
of pleasure-boats outing it for the afternoon, and there 
was nothing to distinguish the true voyager from the 
amateur, except, perhaps, the filthy condition of my sail. 
The company in one boat actually thought they recog- 
nised me for a neighbour. Was there ever anything more 
wounding? All the romance had come down to that. 
Now, on the upper Oise, where nothing sailed, as a general 
thing, but fish, a pair of canoeists could not be thus 

io6 



Changed Times 107 

vulgarly explained away ; we were strange and picturesque 
intruders ; and out of people's wonder sprang a sort of 
light and passing intimacy all along our route. There is 
nothing but tit for tat in this world, though sometimes it 
be a little difficult to trace : for the scores are older than 
we ourselves, and there has never yet been a settling- 
day since things were. You get entertainment pretty 
much in proportion as you give. As long as we were a 
sort of odd wanderers, to be stared at and followed like 
a quack doctor or a caravan, we had no want of amuse- 
ment in return ; but as soon as we sank into commonplace 
ourselves, all whom we met were similarly disenchanted. 
And here is one reason of a dozen why the world is dull to 
dull persons. 

In our earlier adventures there was generally something 
to do, and that quickened us. Even the showers of rain 
had a revivifying effect, and shook up the brain from tor- 
por. But now, when the river no longer ran in a proper 
sense, only glided seaward with an even, outright, but 
imperceptible speed, and when the sky smiled upon us 
day after day without variety, we began to slip into that 
golden doze of the mind which follows upon much exer- 
cise in the open air. I have stupefied myself in this way 
more than once : indeed, I dearly love the feeling ; but 
I never had it to the same degree as when paddling down 
the Oise. It was the apotheosis of stupidity. 

We ceased reading entirely. Sometimes, when I found 
a new paper, I took a particular pleasure in reading a 
single number of the current novel ; but I never could 
bear more than three instalments ; and even the second 
was a disappointment. As soon as the tale became in 
any way perspicuous, it "lost all merit in my eyes; only 



io8 An Inland Voyage 

a single scene, or, as is the way with these feuilletons, 
half a scene, without antecedent or consequence, like a 
piece of a dream, had the knack of fixing my interest. 
The less I saw of the novel the better I liked it : a preg- 
nant reflection. But for the most part, as I said, we 
neither of us read anything in the world, and employed 
the very little while we were awake between bed and 
dinner in poring upon maps. I have always been fond 
of maps, and can voyage in an atlas with the greatest en- 
joyment. The names of places are singularly inviting; 
the contour of coasts and rivers is enthralling to the 
eye ; and to hit in a map upon some place you have heard 
of before makes history a new possession. But we 
thumbed our charts, on those evenings, with the blankest 
unconcern. We cared not a fraction for this place or 
that. We stared at the sheet as children listen to their 
rattle, and read the names of towns or villages to forget 
them again at once. We had no romance in the matter ; 
there was nobody so fancy-free. If you had taken the 
maps away while we were studying them most intently 
it is a fair bet whether we might not have conti-nued to 
study the table with the same delight. 

About one thing we were mightily taken up, and that 
was eating. I think I made a god of my belly. I re- 
member dwelling in imagination upon this or that dish 
till my mouth watered ; and long before we got in for the 
night my appetite was a clamant, instant annoyance. 
Sometimes we paddled alongside for awhile and whetted 
each other with gastronomical fancies as we went. Cake 
and sherry, a homely refection, but not within reach 
upon the Oise, trotted through my head for many a mile ; 
and once, as we were approaching Verberie, the Cigarette 



Changed Times 109 

brought my heart into my mouth by the suggestion of 
oyster patties and Sauterne. 

I suppose none of us recognise the great part that is 
played in Ufe by eating and drinking. The appetite is so 
imperious that we can stomach the least interesting vi- 
ands, and pass off a dinner hour thankfully enough on 
bread and water; just as there are men who must read 
something, if it were only Bradshaw's Guide. But there 
is a romance about the matter, after all. Probably the 
table has more devotees than love ; and I am sure that 
food is much more generally entertaining than scenery. 
Do you give in, as Walt Whitman would say, that you 
are any the less immortal for that ? The true materialism 
is to be ashamed of what we are. To detect the flavour 
of an olive is no less a piece of human perfection than to 
find beauty in the colours of the sunset. 

Canoeing was easy work. To dip the paddle at the 
proper inclination, now right, now left ; to keep the head 
down stream ; to empty the little pool that gathered in 
the lap of the apron ; to screw up the eyes against the 
glittering sparkles of sun upon the water; or now and 
again to pass below the whistling tow-rope of the Deo 
Gratias of Conde, or Four Sons of Aymon, — there was 
not much art in that; certain silly muscles managed it 
between sleep and waking; and meanwhile the brain 
had a whole holiday, and went to sleep. We took in at 
a glance the larger features of the scene, and beheld, with 
half an eye, bloused fishers and dabbling washerwomen 
on the bank. Now and again we might be half wakened 
by some church spire, by a leaping fish, or by a trail of 
river grass that clung about the paddle and had to be 
plucked off and thrown away. But these luminous in- 



no An Inland Voyage 

tervals were only partially luminous. A little more of 
us was called into action, but never the whole. The cen- 
tral bureau of nerves, what in some moods we call Our- 
selves, enjoyed its holiday without disturbance, like a 
Government Office. The great wheels of intelligence 
turned idly in the head, like fly-wheels, grinding no grist. 
I have gone on for half an hour at a time, counting my 
strokes and forgetting the hundreds. I flatter myself 
the beasts that perish could not underbid that, as a low 
form of consciousness. And what a pleasure it was ! 
What a hearty, tolerant temper did it bring about! 
There is nothing captious about a man who has attained 
to this, the one possible apotheosis in life, the Apotheosis 
of Stupidity; and 

There was one odd piece of practical metaphysics which 
accompanied what I may call the depth, if I must not 
call it the intensity, of my abstraction. What philoso- 
phers call me and not me, ego and non ego, preoccupied me 
whether I would or no. There was less me and more not 
me than I was accustomed to expect. I looked on upon 
somebody else, who managed the paddling ; I was aware 
of somebody else's feet against the stretcher; my own 
body seemed to have no more intimate relation to me 
than the canoe, or the river, or the river banks. Nor this 
alone : something inside my mind, a part of my brain, a 
province of my proper being, had thrown off allegiance 
and set up for itself, or perhaps for the somebody else who 
did the paddling. I had dwindled into quite a little 
thing in a corner of myself. I was isolated in my own 
skull. Thoughts presented themselves unbidden; they 
were not my thoughts, they were plainly some one else's ; 
and I considered them like a part of the landscape. I 



Changed Times iii 

take it, in short, that I was about as near Nirvana as would 
be convenient in practical life ; and, if this be so, I make 
the Buddhists my sincere compliments ; 'tis an agreeable 
state, not very consistent with mental brilliancy, not 
exactly profitable in a money point of view, but very calm, 
golden, and incurious, and one that sets a man superior 
to alarms. It may be best figured by supposing yourself 
to get dead drunk, and yet keep sober to enjoy it. I have 
a notion that open-air labourers must spend a large por- 
tion of their days in this ecstatic stupor, which explains 
their high composure and endurance. A pity to go to 
the expense of laudanum when here is a better paradise 
for nothing ! 

This frame of mind was the great exploit of our voyage, 
take it all in all. It was the farthest piece of travel ac- 
complished. Indeed, it hes so far from beaten paths of 
language that I despair of getting the reader into sym- 
pathy with the smiling, complacent idiocy of my condi- 
tion; when ideas came and went like motes in a sun- 
beam ; when trees and church spires along the bank surged 
up from time to time into my notice, like solid objects 
through a rolling cloud-land ; when the rhythmical swish 
of boat and paddle in the water became a cradle-song to 
lull my thoughts asleep; when a piece of mud on the 
deck was sometimes an intolerable eyesore, and sometimes 
quite a companion for me, and the object of pleased con- 
sideration; and all the time, with the river running and 
the shores changing upon either hand, I kept counting my 
strokes and forgetting the hundreds, the happiest animal 
in France. 



DOWN THE OISE 

Church Interiors 

We made our first stage below Compiegne to Pont 
Sainte-Maxence. I was abroad a little after six the next 
morning. The air was biting and smelt of frost. In an 
open place a score of women wrangled together over the 
day's market ; and the noise of their negotiation sounded 
thin and querulous, like that of sparrow^s on a winter's 
morning. The rare passengers blew into their hands, 
and shuffled in their wooden shoes to set the blood agog. 
The streets were full of icy shadow^, although the chim- 
neys were smoking overhead in golden sunshine. If you 
wake early enough at this season of the year, you may 
get up in December to break your fast in June. 

I found my way to the church, for there is always some- 
thing to see about a church, whether living worshippers 
or dead men's tombs ; you find there the deadliest earnest, 
and the hoUowest deceit ; and even where it is not a piece 
of history, it will be certain to leak out some contemporary 
gossip. It was scarcely so cold in the church as it was 
without, but it looked colder. The white nave was pos- 
itively arctic to the eye ; and the taw^driness of a conti- 
nental altar looked more forlorn than usual in the solitude 
and the bleak air. Two priests sat in the chancel read- 
ing and waiting penitents ; and out in the nave one very 
old woman was engaged in her devotions. It was a won- 



Down the Olse 113 

der how she was able to pass her beads when healthy 
young people were breathing in their palms and slapping 
their chest ; but though this concerned me, I was yet 
more dispirited by the nature of her exercises. She went 
from chair to chair, from altar to altar, circumnavigating 
the church. To each shrine she dedicated an equal 
number of beads and an equal length of time. Like a 
prudent capitalist with a somewhat cynical view of the 
commercial prospect, she desired to place her supplica- 
tions in a great variety of heavenly securities. She would 
risk nothing on the credit of any single intercessor. Out 
of the whole company of saints and angels, not one but 
was to suppose himself her champion elect against the 
Great Assizes ! I could only think of it as a dull, trans- 
parent jugglery, based upon unconscious unbelief. 

She was as dead an old woman as ever I saw ; no more 
than bone and parchment, curiously put together. Her 
eyes, with which she interrogated mine, were vacant of 
sense. It depends on what you call seeing, whether you 
might not call her blind. Perhaps she had known love : 
perhaps borne children, suckled them, and given them 
pet names. But now that was all gone by, and had left 
her neither happier nor wiser ; and the best she could do 
with her mornings was to come up here into the cold 
church and juggle for a slice of heaven. It was not with- 
out a gulp that I escaped into the streets and the keen 
morning air. Morning? why, how tired of it she would 
be before night ! and if she did not sleep, how then? It 
is fortunate that not many of us are brought up publicly 
to justify our lives at the bar of threescore years and 
ten ; fortunate that such a number are knocked oppor- 
tunely on the head in what they call the flower of their 



114 A^ Inland Voyage 

years, and go away to suffer for their follies in private 
somewhere else. Otherwise, between sick children and 
discontented old folk, we might be put out of all conceit 
of life. 

I had need of all my cerebral hygiene during that day's 
paddle : the old devotee stuck in my throat sorely. But 
I was soon in the seventh heaven of stupidity ; and knew 
nothing but that somebody was paddling a canoe, while 
I was counting his strokes and forgetting the hundreds. 
I used sometimes to be afraid I should remember the 
hundreds; which would have made a toil of a pleasure; 
but the terror was chimerical, they went out of my mind 
by enchantment, and I knew no more than the man in 
the moon about my only occupation. 

At Creil, where we stopped to lunch, we left the canoes 
in another floating lavatory, which, as it was high noon, 
was packed with washerwomen, red-handed and loud- 
voiced ; and they and their broad jokes are about all I 
remember of the place. I could look up my history 
books, if you were very anxious, and tell you a date or 
two; for it figured rather largely in the English wars. 
But I prefer to mention a girls' boarding-school, which 
had an interest for us because it was a girls' boarding- 
school, and because we imagined we had rather an in- 
terest for it. At least, there were the girls about the 
garden; and here were we on the river; and there was 
more than one handkerchief waved as we went by. It 
caused quite a stir in my heart ; and yet how we should 
have wearied and despised each other, these girls and I, 
if we had been introduced at a croquet party ! But this 
is a fashion I love : to kiss the hand or wave a handker- 
chief to people I shall never see again, to play with pos- 



Down the Oise 115 

sibility, and knock in a peg for fancy to hang upon. It 
gives the traveller a jog, reminds him that he is not a 
traveller everywhere, and that his journey is no more 
than a siesta by the way on the real march of life. 

The church at Creil was a nondescript place in the 
inside, splashed with gaudy lights from the windows, 
and picked out with medallions of the Dolorous Way. 
But there was one oddity, in the way of an ex voto, which 
pleased me hugely : a faithful model of a canal boat, 
swung from the vault, with a written aspiration that God 
should conduct the Saint Nicholas of Creil to a good haven. 
The thing was neatly executed, and would have made the 
delight of a party of boys on the water-side. But what 
tickled me was the gravity of the peril to be conjured. 
You might hang up the model of a sea-going ship, and 
welcome : one that is to plough a furrow round the world, 
and visit the tropic or the frosty poles, runs dangers that 
are well worth a candle and a mass. But the Saint 
Nicholas of Creil, which was to be tugged for some ten 
years by patient draught horses, in a weedy canal, with 
the poplars chattering overhead, and the skipper whistling 
at the tiller ; which was to do all its errands in green in- 
land places, and never got out of sight of a village belfry 
in all its cruising ; why, you would have thought if any- 
thing could be done without the intervention of Provi- 
dence, it would be that ! But perhaps the skipper was a 
humourist: or perhaps a prophet, reminding people of 
the seriousness of life by this preposterous token. 

At Creil, as at Noyon, St. Joseph seemed a favourite 
saint on the score of punctuality. Day and hour can be 
specified ; and grateful people do not fail to specify them 
on a votive tablet, when prayers have been punctually 



Ii6 An Inland Voyage 

and neatly answered. Whenever time is a consideration, 
St. Joseph is the proper intermediary. I took a sort of 
pleasure in observing the vogue he had in France, for the 
good man plays a very small part in my religion at home. 
Yet I could not help fearing that, where the saint is so 
much commended for exactitude, he will be expected to 
be very grateful for his tablet. 

This is foolishness to us Protestants ; and not of great 
importance anyway. Whether people's gratitude for the 
good gifts that come to them be wisely conceived or duti- 
fully expressed is a secondary matter, after all, so long as 
they feel gratitude. The true ignorance is when a man 
does not know that he has received a good gift, or begins 
to imagine that he has got it for himself. The self-made 
man is the funniest windbag after all ! There is a marked 
difference between decreeing light in chaos, and lighting 
the gas in a metropolitan back-parlour with a box of 
patent matches; and, do what we will, there is always 
something made to our hand, if it were only our fingers. 

But there was something worse than foolishness pla- 
carded in Creil Church. The Association of the Living 
Rosary (of which I had never previously heard) is respon- 
sible for that. This association was founded, according 
to the printed advertisement, by a brief of Pope Gregory 
Sixteenth, on the 17th of January, 1832 : according to a 
coloured bas-relief, it seems to have been founded, some 
time or other, by the Virgin giving one rosary to St. 
Dominic, and the Infant Saviour giving another to St. 
Catherine of Sienna. Pope Gregory is not so imposing, 
but he is nearer hand. I could not distinctly make out 
whether the association was entirely devotional, or had 
an eye to good works ; at least it is highly organised : the 



Down the Oise 117 

names of fourteen matrons and misses were filled in for 
each week of the month as associates, with one other, gen- 
erally a married woman, at the top for Zelatrice, the 
choragus of the band. Indulgences, plenary and partial, 
follow on the performance of the duties of the association. 
"The partial indulgences are attached to the recitation 
of the rosary." On "the recitation of the required diz- 
aine,'^ a partial indulgence promptly follows. When 
people serve the kingdom of Heaven with a pass-book 
in their hands, I should always be afraid lest they should 
carry the same commercial spirit into their dealings with 
their fellow-men, which would make a sad and sordid 
business of this life. 

There is one more article, however, of happier import. 
"All these indulgences," it appeared, "are applicable to 
souls in purgatory." For God's sake, ye ladies of Creil, 
apply them all to the souls in purgatory without delay ! 
Burns would take no hire for his last songs, preferring to 
serve his country out of unmixed love. Suppose you 
were to imitate the excise man, Mesdames, and even if 
the souls in purgatory were not greatly bettered, some 
souls in Creil upon the Oise would find themselves none 
the worse either here or hereafter. 

I cannot help wondering, as I transcribe these notes, 
whether a Protestant born and bred is in a fit state to 
understand these signs, and do them what justice they 
deserve; and I cannot help answering that he is not. 
They cannot look so merely ugly and mean to the faithful 
as Ihey do to me. I see that as clearly as a proposition 
in Euclid. For these believers are neither weak nor 
wicked. They can put up their tablet commending St. 
Joseph for his despatch as if he were still a village car- 



ii8 An Inland Voyage 

penter ; they can '' recite the required dizaine,'' and meta- 
phorically pocket the indulgences as if they had done a 
job for heaven ; and then they can go out and look down 
unabashed upon this wonderful river flowing by, and 
up without confusion at the pin-point stars, which are 
themselves great worlds full of flowing rivers greater than 
the Oise. I see it as plainly, I say, as a proposition in 
Euclid, that my Protestant mind has missed the point, 
and that there goes with these deformities some higher 
and more religious spirit than I dream. 

I wonder if other people would make the same allow- 
ances for me? Like the ladies of CreU, having recited 
my rosary of toleration, I look for my indulgence on the 
spot. 



PRECY AND THE MARIONETTES 

We made Precy about sundown. The plain is rich 
with tufts of poplar. In a wide, luminous curve the 
Oise lay under the hillside. A faint mist began to rise 
and confound the different distances together. There 
was not a sound audible but that of the sheep-bells in 
some meadows by the river, and the creaking of a cart 
down the long road that descends the hill. The villas in 
their gardens, the shops along the street, all seemed to 
have been deserted the day before ; and I felt inclined to 
walk discreetly as one feels in a silent forest. All of a 
sudden we came round a corner, and there, in a little 
green round the church, was a bevy of girls in Parisian 
costumes playing croquet. Their laughter and the hollow 
sound of ball and mallet made a cheery stir in the neigh- 
bourhood ; and the look of these slim figures, all corseted 
and ribboned, produced an answerable disturbance in 
our hearts. We were within sniff of Paris, it seemed. 
And here were females of our own species playing croquet, 
just as if Precy had been a place in real life instead of a 
stage in the fairyland of travel. For, to be frank, the 
peasant-woman is scarcely to be counted as a woman at 
all, and after having passed by such a succession of 
people in petticoats digging, and hoeing, and making din- 
ner, this company of coquettes under arms made quite 
a surprising feature in the landscape, and convinced us at 
once of being fallible males. 

119 



I20 An Inland Voyage 

The inn at Precy is the worst inn in France. Not even 
in Scotland have I found worse fare. It was kept by a 
brother and sister, neither of whom was out of their teens. 
The sister, so to speak, prepared a meal for us; and the 
brother, who had been tippling, came in and brought with 
him a tipsy butcher, to entertain us as we ate. We found 
pieces of loo-warm pork among the salad, and pieces of 
unknown yielding substance in the ragotlt. The butcher 
entertained us with pictures of Parisian life, with which 
he professed himself well acquainted ; the brother sitting 
the while on the edge of the billiard table, toppling pre- 
cariously, and sucking the stump of a cigar. In the midst 
of these diversions bang went a drum past the house, and 
a hoarse voice began issuing a proclamation. It was a 
man with marionettes announcing a performance for that 
evening. 

He had set up his caravan and lighted his candles on 
another part of the girls' croquet green, under one of those 
open sheds which are so common in France to shelter 
markets ; and he and his wife, by the time we strolled 
up there, were trying to keep order with the audience. 

It was the most absurd contention. The show-people 
had set out a certain number of benches ; and all who sat 
upon them were to pay a couple of sous for the accommo- 
dation. They were always quite full — a bumper house 
— as long as nothing was going forward ; but let the show- 
woman appear with an eye to a collection, and at the first 
rattle of the tambourine the audience slipped off the seats 
and stood round on the outside, with their hands in their 
pockets. It certainly would have tried an angel's temper. 
The showman roared from the proscenium ; he had been 
all over France, and nowhere, nowhere, ''not even on the 



I 

Precy and the Marionettes 121 

borders of Germany," had he met with such misconduct. 
Such thieves, and rogues, and rascals as he called them ! 
And now and again the wife issued or another round, and 
added her shrill quota to the tirade. I remarked here, as 
elsewhere, how far more copious is the female mind in 
the material of insult. The audience laughed in high 
good-humour over the man's declamations ; but they 
bridled and cried aloud under the woman's pungent sallies. 
She picked out the sore points. She had the honour of 
the village at her mercy. Voices answered her angrily 
out of the crowd, and received a smarting retort for their 
trouble. A couple of old ladies beside me, who had duly 
paid for their seats, waxed very red and indignant, and 
discoursed to each other audibly about the impudence of 
these mountebanks ; but as soon as the show-woman 
caught a whisper of this she was down upon them with a 
swoop ; if mesdames could persuade their neighbours to 
act with common honesty, the mountebanks, she assured 
them, would be polite enough; mesdames had probably 
had their bowl of soup, and, perhaps, a glass of wine that 
evening ; the mountebanks, also, had a taste for soup, 
and did not choose to have their little earnings stolen 
from them before their eyes. Once, things came as far 
as a brief personal encounter between the showman and 
some lads, in which the former went down as readily as 
one of his own marionettes to a peal of jeering laughter. 

I was a good deal astonished at this scene, because I 
am pretty well acquainted with the ways of French strollers 
more or less artistic ; and have always found them singu- 
larly pleasing. Any stroller must be dear to the right- 
thinking heart ; if it were only as a living protest against 
offices and the mercantile spirit, and as something to 



122 An Inland Voyage 

remind us that life is not by necessity the kind of thing 
we generally make it. Even a German band, if you see 
it leaving town in the early morning for a campaign in 
country places, among trees and meadows, has a romantic 
flavour for the imagination. There is nobody under 
thirty so dead but his heart will stir a little at sight of a 
gipsies' camp. ''We are not cotton-spinners all"; or, 
at least, not all through. There is some life in humanity 
yet ; and youth will now and again find a brave word to 
say in dispraise of riches, and throw up a situation to go 
strolling with a knapsack. 

An Englishman has always special facilities for inter- 
course with French gymnasts ; for England is the natural 
home of gymnasts. This or that fellow, in his tights and 
spangles, is sure to know a word or two of English, to have 
drunk English aff-n-aff, and, perhaps, performed in an 
English music hall. He is di countryman of mine by pro- 
fession. He leaps like the Belgian boating-men to the 
notion that I must be an athlete myself. 

But the gymnast is not my favourite ; he has little or 
no tincture of the artist in his composition; his soul is 
small and pedestrian, for the most part, since his profes- 
sion makes no call upon it, and does not accustom him to 
high ideas. But if a man is only so much of an actor that 
he can stumble through a farce, he is made free of a new 
order of thoughts. He has something else to think about 
beside the money-box. He has a pride of his own, and, 
what is of far more importance, he has an aim before him 
that he can never quite attain. He has gone upon a pil- 
grimage that will last him his life long, because there is no 
end to it short of perfection. He will better himself a 
little day by day ; or, even if he has given up the attempt, 



Precy and the Marionettes 123 

he will always remember that once upon a time he had 
conceived this high ideal, that once upon a time he fell in 
love with a star. '' 'Tis better to have loved and lost." 
Although the moon should have nothing to say to Endy- 
mion, although he should settle down with Audrey and 
feed pigs, do you not think he would move with a better 
grace and cherish higher thoughts to the end? The louts 
he meets at church never had a fancy above Audrey's 
snood ; but there is a reminiscence in Endymion's heart 
that, like a spice, keeps it fresh and haughty. 

To be even one of the outskirters of art leaves a fine 
stamp on a man's countenance. I remember once dining 
with a party in the inn at Chateau Landon. Most of 
them were unmistakable bagmen ; others well-to-do 
peasantry ; but there was one young fellow in a blouse, 
whose face stood out from among the rest surprisingly. 
It looked more finished; more of the spirit looked out 
through it ; it had a living, expressive air, and you could 
see that his eyes took things in. My companion and I 
wondered greatly who and. what he could be. It was 
fair time in Chateau Landon, and when we went along 
to the booths we had our question answered; for there 
was our friend busily fiddling for the peasants to caper to. 
He was a wandering violinist. 

A troop of strollers once came to the inn where I was 
staying, in the department of Seine et Marne. There 
were a father and mother ; two daughters, brazen, blowsy 
hussies, who sang and acted, without an idea of how to 
set about either; and a dark young man, like a tutor, a 
recalcitrant house-painter, who sang and acted not amiss. 
The mother was the genius of the party, so far as genius 
can be spoken of with regard to such a pack of incompetent 



124 ^^ Inland Voyage 

humbugs ; and her husband could not find words to ex- 
press his admiration for her comic countryman. "You 
should see my old woman," said he, and nodded his beery 
countenance. One night they performed in the stable- 
yard with flaring lamps : a wretched exhibition, coldly 
looked upon by a village audience. Next night, as soon 
as the lamps were lighted, there came a plump of rain, 
and they had to sweep away their baggage as fast as 
possible, and make off to the barn, where they harboured, 
cold, wet, and supperless. In the morning a dear friend 
of mine, who has as warm a heart for strollers as I have 
myself, made a little collection, and sent it by my hands 
to comfort them for their disappointment. I gave it to 
the father ; he thanked me cordially, and we drank a 
cup together in the kitchen, talking of roads and audiences, 
and hard times. 

When I was going, up got my old stroller, and off with 
his hat. "I am afraid," said he, "that Monsieur will 
think me altogether a beggar ; but I have another de- 
mand to make upon him." I began to hate him on the 
spot. "We play again to-night," he went on. "Of 
course I shall refuse to accept any more money from 
Monsieur and his friends, who have been already so liberal. 
But our programme of to-night is something truly credit- 
able ; and I cling to the idea that Mcnsieur will honour us 
with his presence." And then, with a shrug and a smile : 
"Monsieur understands, — the vanity of an artist!!' 
Save the mark ! The vanity of an artist ! That is the 
kind of thing that reconciles me to life : a ragged, tippling, 
incompetent old rogue, with the manners of a gentleman 
and the vanity of an artist, to keep up his self-respect ! 

But the man after my own heart is M. de Vauversin. 



Precy and the Marionettes 125 

It is nearly two years since I saw him first, and indeed I 
hope I may see him often again. Here is his first pro- 
gramme as I found it on the breakfast-table, and have 
kept it ever since as a relic of bright days : 

" Mesdames et Messieurs, 

" Mademoiselle Ferrario et M. de Vauversin auront I'hon- 
neur de chanter ce soir les morceaux suivants. 

" Mademoiselle Ferrario chantera — Mignon — Oiseaux Le- 
gers — France — Des Frangais dorment la — le chateau bleu 

— Ou voulez-vous aller ? 

"M. de Vauversin — ^ Madame Fontaine et M. Robinet — 
Les plongeurs a cheval — Le Mari mecontent — Tais-toi, gamin 

— Mon voisin I'original — Heureux comme ga — comme on est 
trompe." 

They made a stage at one end of the salle-d-manger. 
And what a sight it was to see M. de Vauversin, with a 
cigarette in his mouth, twanging a guitar, and following 
Mademoiselle Ferrario's eyes with the obedient, kindly 
look of a dog ! The entertainment wound up with a 
tombola, or auction of lottery tickets : an admirable 
amusement, with all the excitement of gambling, and no 
hope of gain to make you ashamed of your eagerness ; for 
there, all is loss ; you make haste to be out of pocket ; it 
is a competition who shall lose most money for the benefit 
of M. de Vauversin and Mademoiselle Ferrario. 

M. de Vauversin is a small man, with a great head of 
black hair, a vivacious and engaging air, and a smile that 
would be delightful if he had better teeth. He was once 
an actor in the Chatelet ; but he contracted a nervous 
affection from the heat and glare of the foot-lights, which 
unfitted him for the stage. At this crisis Mademoiselle 
Ferrario, otherwise Mademoiselle Rita of the Alcazar, 



126 An Inland Voyage 

agreed to share his wandering fortunes. ''I could never 
forget the generosity of that lady," said he. He wears 
trousers so tight that it has long been a problem to all 
who knew him how he manages to get in and out of them. 
He sketches a little in water-colours, he writes verses ; he 
is the most patient of fishermen, and spent long days at 
the bottom of the inn-garden fruitlessly dabbling a line 
in the clear river. 

You should hear him recounting his experiences over a 
bottle of wine ; such a pleasant vein of talk as he has, with 
a ready smile at his own mishaps, and every now and 
then a sudden gravity, like a man who should hear the 
surf roar while he was telling the perils of the deep. For 
it was no longer ago than last night, perhaps, that the 
receipts only amounted to a franc and a half to cover 
three francs of railway fare and two of board and lodging. 
The Maire, a man worth a million of money, sat in the 
front seat, repeatedly applauding Mademoiselle Ferrario, 
and yet gave no more than three sous the whole evening. 
Local authorities look with such an evil eye upon the 
strolling artist. Alas! I know it well, who have been 
myself taken for one, and pitilessly incarcerated on the 
strength of the misapprehension. Once, M. de Vauversin 
visited a commissary of police for permission to sing. The 
commissary, who was smoking at his ease, politely doffed 
his hat upon the singer's entrance. ''Mr. Commissary,*' 
he began, "I am an artist." And on went the com- 
missary's hat again. No courtesy for the companions of 
Apollo! "They are as degraded as that," said M. de 
Vauversin, with a sweep of his cigarette. 

But what pleased me most was one outbreak of his, 
when we had been talking all the evening of the rubs, in- 



Precy and the Marionettes 127 

dignities, and pinchings of his wandering life. Some one 
said it would be better to have a million of money down, 
and Mademoiselle Ferrario admitted that she would 
prefer that mightily. ^' Eh bien, moi non; — not I," cried 
De Vauversin, striking the table with his hand. "If 
any one is a failure in the world, is it not I? I had an 
art, in which I have done things well, — as well as some, 
better, perhaps, than others ; and now it is closed against 
me. I must go about the country gathering coppers 
and singing nonsense. Do you think I regret my life? 
Do you think I would rather be a fat burgess, like a calf ? 
Not I ! I have had moments when I have been applauded 
on the boards : I think nothing of that ; but I have known 
in my own mind sometimes, when I had not a clap from 
the whole house, that I had found a true intonation, or 
an exact and speaking gesture ; and then, messieurs, I 
have known what pleasure was, what it was to do a thing 
well, what it was to be an artist. And to know what 
art is, is to have an interest for ever, such as no burgess 
can find in his petty concerns. Tenez, messieurs, je vais 
votes le dire, — it is like a religion." 

Such, making some allowance for the tricks of memory 
and the inaccuracies of translation, was the profession of 
faith of M. de Vauversin. I have given him his own 
name, lest any other wanderer should come across him, 
with his guitar and cigarette, and Mademoiselle Ferrario ; 
for should not all the world delight to honour this un- 
fortunate and loyal follower of the Muses? May Apollo 
send him rhymes hitherto undreamed of ; may the river 
be no longer scanty of her silver fishes to his lure ; may the 
cold not pinch him on long winter rides, nor the village 
jack-in-office affront him with unseemly manners: and 



128 An Inland Voyage 

may he never miss Mademoiselle Ferrario from his side, 
to follow with his dutiful eyes and accompany on the 
guitar ! 

The marionettes made a very dismal entertainment. 
They performed a piece called Pyramus and Thisbe, in 
five mortal acts, and all written in Alexandrines fully as 
long as the performers. One marionette was the king ; 
another the wicked counsellor ; a third, credited with ex- 
ceptional beauty, represented Thisbe ; and then there 
were guards, and obdurate fathers, and walking gentlemen. 
Nothing particular took place during the two or three 
acts that I sat out ; but you will be pleased to learn that 
the unities were properly respected, and the whole piece, 
with one exception, moved in harmony with classical 
rules. That exception was the comic countryman, a lean 
marionette in wooden shoes, who spoke in prose and in 
a broad patois much appreciated by the audience. He 
took unconstitutional liberties with the person of his 
sovereign ; kicked his fellow-marionettes in the mouth 
with his wooden shoes, and whenever none of the versi- 
fying suitors were about, made love to Thisbe on his own 
account in comic prose. 

This fellow's evolutions, and the little prologue, in which 
the showman made a humorous eulogium of his troop, 
praising their indifference to applause and hisses, and their 
single devotion to their art, were the only circumstances 
in the whole affair that you could fancy would so much as 
raise a smile. But the villagers of Precy seemed delighted. 
Indeed, so long as a thing is an exhibition, and you pay to 
see it, it is nearly certain to amuse. If we were charged 
so much a head for sunsets, or if God sent round a drum 
before the hawthorns came in flower, what work should 



Precy and the Marionettes 129 

we not make about their beauty ! But these things, like 
good companions, stupid people early cease to observe 
and the Abstract Bagman tittups past in his spring gig, 
and is positively not aware of the flowers along the lane, 
or the scenery of the weather overhead. 



BACK TO THE WORLD 

Of the next two days' sail little remains in my mind, and 
nothing whatever in my note-book. The river streamed 
on steadily through pleasant river-side landscapes. 
Washerwomen in blue dresses, fishers in blue blouses, 
diversified the green banks ; and the relation of the two 
colours was like that of the flower and the leaf in the 
forget-me-not. A symphony in forget-me-not ; I think 
Theophile Gautier might thus have characterised that 
two days' panorama. The sky was blue and cloudless; 
and the sliding surface of the river held up, in smooth 
places, a mirror to the heaven and the shores. The 
washerwomen hailed us laughingly; and the noise of 
trees and water made an accompaniment to our dozing 
thoughts, as we fleeted down the stream. 

The great volume, the indefatigable purpose of the 
river, held the mind in chain. It seemed now so sure of 
its end, so strong and easy in its gait, like a grown man 
full of determination. The surf was roaring for it on 
the sands of Havre. For my own part slipping along 
this moving thoroughfare in my fiddle-case of a canoe, I 
also was beginning to grow aweary for my ocean. To the 
civilised man there must come, sooner or later, a desire 
for civilisation. I was weary of dipping the paddle ; I 
was weary of living on the skirts of life ; I wished to be 
in the thick of it once more ; I wished to get to work ; 
I wished to meet people who understood my own speech, 

• 130 



Back to the World 131 

and could meet with me an equal terms, as a man, and 
no longer as a curiosity. 

And so a letter at Pontoise decided us, and we drew up 
our keels for the last time out of that river of Oise that 
had faithfully piloted them, through rain and sunshine, 
for so long. For so many miles had this fleet and footless 
beast of burthen charioted our fortunes that we turned 
our back upon it with a sense of separation. We had a 
long detour out of the world, but now we were back in 
the familiar places, where life itself makes all the running, 
and we are carried to meet adventure without a stroke 
of the paddle. Now we were to return, like the voyager 
in the play, and see what rearrangements fortune had 
perfected the while in our surroundings ; what surprises 
stood ready-made for us at home ; and whither and how 
far the world had voyaged in our absence. You may 
paddle all day long ; but it is when you come back at 
nightfall, and look in at the familiar room, that you find 
Love or Death awaiting you beside the stove; and the 
most beautiful adventures are not those we go to seek. 



EPILOGUE TO "AN INLAND VOYAGE" 



EPILOGUE TO "AN INLAND VOYAGE" 

The country where they journeyed, that green, breezy 
valley of the Loing, is one very attractive to cheerful and 
solitary people. The weather was superb ; all night it 
thundered and lightened, and the rain fell in sheets; by 
day, the heavens were cloudless, the sun fervent, the air 
vigorous and pure. They walked separate : the Cigarette 
plodding behind with some philosophy, the lean Arethusa 
posting on ahead. Thus each enjoyed his own reflections 
by the way ; each had perhaps time to tire of them be- 
fore he met his comrade at the designated inn ; and the 
pleasures of society and solitude combined to fill the 
day. The Arethusa carried in his knapsack the works of 
Charles of Orleans, and employed some of the hours of 
travel in the concoction of English roundels. In this 
path, he must thus have preceded Mr. Lang, Mr. Dobson, 
Mr. Henley, and all contemporary roundeleers ; but for 
good reasons, he will be the last to publish the result. The 
Cigarette walked burthened with a volume of Michelet. 
And both these books, it will be seen, played a part in 
the subsequent adventure. 

The Arethusa was unwisely dressed. He is no precisian 
in attire ; but by all accounts, he was never so ill-inspired 
as on that tramp ; having set forth indeed, upon a mo- 
ment's notice, from the most unfashionable spot in Eu- 
rope, Barbizon. On his head, he wore a smoking-cap of 
Indian work, the gold lace pitifully frayed and tarnished. 
A flannel shirt of an agreeable dark hue, which the satirical 

135 



136 An Inland Voyage 

called black ; a light tweed coat made by a good English 
tailor; ready-made cheap linen trousers and leathern 
gaiters completed his array. In person, he is exceptionally 
lean ; and his face is not like those of happier mortals, a 
certificate. For years he could not pass a frontier or 
visit a bank without suspicion; the police everywhere 
but in his native city, looked askance upon him; and 
(though I am sure it will not be credited) he is actually 
denied admittance to the casino of Monte Carlo. If you 
will imagine him, dressed as above, stooping under his 
knapsack, walking nearly five miles an hour with the 
folds of the ready-made trousers fluttering about his 
spindle shanks, and still looking eagerly round him as if 
in terror of pursuit — the figure, when realised, is far 
from reassuring. When Villon journeyed (perhaps by 
the same pleasant valley) to his exile at Roussillon, I 
wonder if he had not something of the same appearance. 
Something of the same preoccupation he had beyond a 
doubt, for he too must have tinkered verses as he walked, 
with more success than his successor. And if he had 
anything like the same inspiring weather, the same nights 
of uproar, men in armour rolling and resounding down the 
stairs of heaven, the rain hissing on the village streets, 
the wild bull's-eye of the storm flashing all night long 
into the bare inn-chamber — the same sweet return of 
day, the same unfathomable blue of noon, the same high- 
coloured, halcyon eyes — and above all if he had anything 
like as good a comrade, anything like as keen a relish for 
what he saw, and what he ate, and the rivers that he 
bathed in, and the rubbish that he wrote, I would ex- 
change estates to-day with the poor exile, and count 
myself a gainer. 



Epilogue to "An Inland Voyage" 137 

But there was another point of similarity between the 
two journeys, for which the Arethusa was to pay dear: 
both were gone upon in days of incomplete security. It 
was not long after the Franco-Prussian war. Swiftly as 
men forget, that country-side was still alive with tale 
of uhlans, and outlying sentries, and hairbreadth 'scapes 
from the ignominious cord, and pleasant momentary 
friendships between invader and invaded. A year, at 
the most two years later, you might have tramped all 
that country over and not heard one anecdote. And a 
year or two later, you would — if you were a rather ill- 
looking young man in nondescript array — have gone 
your rounds in greater safety; for along with more in- 
teresting matter, the Prussian spy would have somewhat 
faded from men's imaginations. 

For all that, our voyager had got beyond Chateau 
Renard before he was conscious of arousing wonder. On 
the road between that place and Chatillon-sur-Loing, how- 
ever, he encountered a rural postman ; they fell together 
in talk, and spoke of a variety of subjects ; but through 
one and all, the postman was still visibly preoccupied, 
and his eyes were faithful to the Arethusa' s knapsack. 
At last, with mysterious roguishness, he inquired what it 
contained, and on being answered, shook his head with 
kindly incredulity. "Non/' said he, "non, vous avez des 
portraits.'' And then with a languishing appeal, '' Voyons, 
show me the portraits!" It was some little while before 
the Arethusa, with a shout of laughter, recognised his 
drift. By portraits he meant indecent photographs; 
and in the Arethusa, an austere and rising author, he 
thought to have identified a pornographic colporteur. 
When countryfolk in France have made up their minds 



138 An Inland Voyage 

as to a person's calling, argument is fruitless. Along all 
the rest of the way, the postman piped and fluted melt- 
ingly to get a sight of the collection ; now he would up- 
braid, now he would reason — '' Voyons, I will tell no- 
body"; then he tried corruption, and insisted on paying 
for a glass of wine ; and, at last, when their ways separated 
— "Non,'' said he, '^ce ti'est pas bien de voire part. O 
non, ce n'est pas hieny And shaking his head with quite 
a sentimental sense of injury, he departed unrefreshed. 

On certain little difficulties encountered by the Arethusa 
at Chatillon-sur-Loing, I have not space to dwell; an- 
other Chatillon, of grislier memory, looms too near at 
hand. But the next day, in a certain hamlet called La 
Jussiere, he stopped to drink a glass of syrup in a very 
poor, bare drinking-shop. The hostess, a comely woman, 
suckling a child, examined the traveller with kindly and 
pitying eyes. "You are not of this department?" she 
asked. The Arethusa told her he was English. "Ah!" 
she said, surprised. "We have na English. We have 
many Italians, however, and they do very well ; they do 
not complain of the people of hereabouts. An English- 
man may do very well also ; it will be something new." 
Here was a dark saying, over which the Arethusa pondered 
as he drank his grenadine ; but when he rose and asked 
what was to pay, the light came upon him in a flash. 
"O, pour vous,'' replied the landlady, "a halfpenny!" 
Pour vous? By heaven, she took him for a beggar ! He 
paid his halfpenny, feeling that it were ungracious to 
correct her. But when he was forth again upon the 
road, he became vexed in spirit. The conscience is a 
gentleman, he is a rabbinical fellow; and his conscience 
told him he had stolen the syrup. 



Epilogue to '*An Inland Voyage" 139 

That night the travellers slept in Gien ; the next day 
they passed the river and set forth (severally, as their 
custom was) on a short stage through the green plain 
upon the Berry side, to Chatillon-sur-Loire. It was the 
first day of the shooting; and the air rang with the re- 
port of firearms and the admiring cries of sportsmen. 
Overhead the birds were in consternation, wheeling in 
clouds, settling and re-arising. And yet with all this 
bustle on either hand, the road itself lay solitary. The 
Arethusa smoked a pipe beside a milestone, and I re- 
member he laid down very exactly all he was to do at 
.Chatillon : how he was to enjoy a cold plunge, to change 
his shirt, and to await the Cigarette's arrival, in sublime 
inaction, by the margin of the Loire. Fired by these ideas, 
he pushed the more rapidly forward, and came, early 
in the afternoon and in a breathing heat, to the entering- 
in of that ill-fated town. Childe Roland to the dark tower 
came. 

A polite gendarme threw his shadow on the path. 

'^Monsieur est voyageur?'' he asked. 

And the Arethusa, strong in his innocence, forgetful of 
his vile attire, replied — I had almost said with gaiety : 
"So it would appear." 

"His papers are in order?" said the gendarme. And 
when the Arethusa with a slight change of voice, ad- 
mitted he had none, he was informed (politely enough) 
that he must appear before the Commissary. 

The Commissary sat at a table in his bedroom, stripped 
to the shirt and trousers, but still copiously perspiring; 
and when he turned upon the prisoner a large meaningless 
countenance, that was (like Bardolph's) "all whelks and 
bubuckles," the dullest might have been prepared for 



140 An Inland Voyage 

grief. Here was a stupid man, sleepy with the heat and 
fretful at the 'nterruption, whom neither appeal nor 
argument could reach. 

The Commissary. You have no papers? 

The Arethusa. Not here. 

The Commissary. Why? 

The Arethusa. I have left them behind in my valise. 

The Commissary. You know, however, that it is 
forbidden to circulate without papers? 

The Arethusa. Pardon me : I am convinced of the 
contrary. I am here on my rights as an English subject 
by international treaty. 

The Commissary {with scorn). You call yourself an 
Englishman ? 

The Arethusa. I do. 

The Commissary. Humph. — What is your trade? 

The Arethusa. I am a Scotch Advocate. 

The Commissary {with singular annoymtce). A Scotch 
advocate ! Do you then pretend to support yourself by 
that in this department? 

The Arethusa modestly disclaimed the pretension. The 
Commissary had scored a point. 

The Commissary. Why, then, do you travel? 

The Arethusa. I travel for pleasure. 

The Commissary {pointing to the knapsack, and with 
sublime incredulity). Avec qa? Voyez-vous, je suis un 
homme intelligent! (With that? Look here, I am a 
person of intelligence !) 

The culprit remaining silent under this home thrust, 
the Commissary relished his triumph for awhile, and then 
demanded (like the postman, but with what different ex- 
pectations !) to see the contents of the knapsack. And 



Epilogue to ''An Inland Voyage" 141 

here the Arethisa, not yet sufficiently awake to his posi- 
tion, fell into a grave mistake. There was little or no 
furniture in the room except the Commissary's chair and 
table ; and to facilitate matters, the Arethusa (with all the 
innocence on earth) leant the knapsack on a corner of the 
bed. The Commissary fairly bounded from his seat; 
his face and neck flushed past purple, almost into blue ; 
and he screamed to lay the desecrating object on the floor. 

The knapsack proved to contain a change of shirts, of 
shoes, of socks, and of linen trousers, a small dressing- 
case, a piece of soap in one of the shoes, two volumes of 
the Collection Jannet lettered Poesies de Charles d^Orleans, 
a map, and a version book containing divers notes in prose 
and the remarkable English roundels of the voyager, 
still to this day unpublished : the Commissary of Chatillon 
is the only living man who has clapped an eye on these 
artistic trifles. He turned the assortment over with a 
contumelious finger; it was plain from his daintiness 
that he regarded the Arethusa and all his belongings as 
the very temple of infection. Still there was nothing sus- 
picious about the map, nothing really criminal except 
the roundels; as for Charles of Orleans, to the ignorant 
mind of the prisoner, he seemed as good as a certificate ; 
and it was supposed the farce was nearly over. 

The inquisitor resumed his seat. 

The Commissary (after a pause). Eh bien,je vais vous 
dire ce que vous etes. Vous etes allemand et vous venez 
chanter a la foire. (Well, then, I will tell you what you 
are. You are a German and have come to sing at the 
fair.) 

The Arethusa. Would you like to hear me sing? 
I believe I could convince you of the contrary. 



142 An Inland Voyage 

The Commissary. Pas de plaisanterie, monsieur! 

The Arethusa. Well, sir, oblige me at least by look- 
ing at this book. Here, I open it with my eyes shut. 
Read one of these songs — read this one — and tell me, 
you who are a man of intelligence, if it would be possible 
to sing it at a fair? 

The Commissary {critically). Mais oui. Tres bien. 

The Arethusa. Comment, monsieur! What ! But 
you do not observe it is antique. It is difficult to under- 
stand, even for you and me; but for the audience at a 
fair, it would be meaningless. 

The Commissary {taking a pen). Enfin, ilfaut enfinir. 
What is your name ? 

The Arethusa {speaking with the swallowing vivacity of 
the English). Robert-Louis-Stev'ns'n. 

The Commissary {aghast). He! Quoi! 

The Arethusa {perceiving and improving his advantage) . 
Rob'rt-Lou's-Stev'ns'n. 

The Commissary {after several conflicts with his pen). 
Eh bien, ilfaut se passer du nom. Ca ne s'ecrit pas. (Well, 
we must do without the name : it is unspellable.) 

The above is a rough summary of this momentous con- 
versation, in which I have been chiefly careful to preserve 
the plums of the Commissary ; but the remainder of the 
scene, perhaps because of his rising anger, has left but 
little definite in the memory of the Arethusa. The Com- 
missary was not, I think, a practised literary man; no 
sooner, at least, had he taken pen in hand and embarked 
on the composition of the proces-verbal, than he became 
distinctly more uncivil and began to show a predilection 
for that simplest of all forms of repartee: "You lie!" 
Several times the Arethusa let it pass, and then sud- 



Epilogue to ''An Inland Voyage" 143 

denly flared up, refused to accept more insults or to answer 
further questions, defied the Commissary to do his worst, 
and promised him, if he did, that he should bitterly re- 
pent it. Perhaps if he had worn this proud front from the 
first, instead of beginning with a sense of entertainment 
and then going on to argue, the thing might have turned 
otherwise ; for even at this eleventh hour the Commissary 
was visibly staggered. But it was too late ; he had been 
challenged; the proces-verhal was begun; and he again 
squared his elbows over his writing, and the Arethusa 
was led forth a prisoner. 

A step or two down the hot road stood the gendarmerie. 
Thither was our unfortunate conducted, and there he 
was bidden to empty forth the contents of his pockets. 
A handkerchief, a pen, a pencil, a pipe and tobacco, 
matches, and some ten francs of change : that was all. 
Not a file, not a cipher, not a scrap of writing whether 
to identify or to condemn. The very gendarme was ap- 
palled before such destitution. 

"I regret," he said, "that I arrest you, for I see that 
you are no voyou.'' And he promised him every indul- 
gence. 

The Arethusa, thus encouraged, asked for his pipe. 
That he was told was impossible, but if he chewed, he 
might have some tobacco. He did not chew, however, 
and asked instead to have his handkerchief. 

''iVow," said the gendarme. "Nous avons eu des 
histoires de gens qui se sont pendus.^^ (No, we have had 
histories of people who hanged themselves.) 

"What," cried the Arethusa. "And is it for that you 
refuse me my handkerchief? But see how much more 
easily I could hang myself in my trousers!" 



144 ^^ Inland Voyage 

The man was struck by the novelty of the idea; but 
he stuck to his colours, and only continued to repeat vague 
offers of service. 

''At least," said the Arethusa, "be sure that you arrest 
my comrade ; he will follow me erelong on the same road, 
and you can tell him by the sack upon his shoulders." 

This promised, the prisoner was led round into the 
back court of the building, a cellar door was opened, he 
was motioned down the stair, and bolts grated and chains 
clanged behind his descending person. 

The philosophic and still more the imaginative mind is 
apt to suppose itself prepared for any mortal accident. 
Prison, among other ills, was one that had been often faced 
by the undaunted Arethusa. Even as he went down the 
stairs, he was telling himself that here was a famous 
occasion for a roundel, and that like the committed linnets 
of the tuneful cavalier, he too would make his prison 
musical. I will tell the truth at once : the roundel was 
never written, or it should be printed in this place, to 
raise a smile. Two reasons interfered : the first moral, 
the second physical. 

It is one of the curiosities of human nature, that al- 
though all men are liars, they can none of them bear to 
be told so of themselves. To get and take the lie with 
equanimity is a stretch beyond the stoic ; and the Arethusa, 
who had been surfeited upon that insult, was blazing in- 
wardly with a white heat of smothered wrath. But the 
physical had also its part. The cellar in which he was 
confined was some feet underground, and it was only 
lighted by an unglazed, narrow aperture high up in the 
wall and smothered in the leaves of a green vine. The 
walls were of naked masonry, the floor of bare earth ; by 



Epilogue to ''An Inland Voyage" 145 

way of furniture there was an earthenware basin, a water- 
jug, and a wooden bedstead with a blue-grey cloak for 
bedding. To be taken from the hot air of a summer's 
afternoon, the reverberation of the road and the stir of 
rapid exercise, and plunged into the gloom and damp of 
this receptacle for vagabonds, struck an instant chill upon 
the Arethusa's blood. Now see in how small a matter a 
hardship may consist: the floor was exceedingly uneven 
underfoot, with the very spade-marks, I suppose, of the 
labourers who dug the foundations of the barrack; and 
what with the poor twilight and the irregular surface, 
walking was impossible. The caged author resisted for 
a good while ; but the chill of the place struck deeper and 
deeper ; and at length, with such reluctance as you may 
fancy, he was driven to climb upon the bed and wrap him- 
self in the public covering. There, then, he lay upon the 
verge of shivering, plunged in semi-darkness, wound in a 
garment whose touch he dreaded like the plague, and (in 
a spirit far removed from resignation) telling the roll of 
the insults he had just received. These are not cir- 
cumstances favourable to the muse. 

Meantime (to look at the upper surface where the sun 
was still shining and the guns of sportsmen were still 
noisy through the tufted plain) the Cigarette was drawing 
near at his more philosophic pace. In those days of 
liberty and health he was the constant partner of the 
Arethusa, and had ample opportunity to share in that 
gentleman's disfavour with the police. Many a bitter 
bowl had he partaken of with that disastrous comrade. 
He was himself a man born to float easily through life, 
his face and manner artfully recommending him to all. 
There was but one suspicious circumstance he could not 



146 An Inland Voyage 

carry off, and that was his companion. He will not 
readily forget the Commissary in what is ironically called 
the free town of Frankfort-on-the-Main ; nor the Franco- 
Belgian frontier ; nor the inn at La Fere ; last, but not 
least, he is pretty certain to remember Chatillon-sur-Loire. 
At the town entry, the gendarme culled him like a 
wayside flower ; and a moment later, two persons, in a 
high state of surprise, were confronted in the Commis- 
sary's office. For if the Cigarette was surprised to be 
arrested, the Commissary was no less taken aback by the 
appearance and appointments of his captive. Here was 
a man about whom there could be no mistake : a man 
of an unquestionable and unassailable manner, in apple- 
pie order, dressed not with neatness merely but elegance, 
ready with his passport, at a word, and well supplied with 
money : a man the Commissary would have doffed his 
hat to on chance upon the highways ; and this beau 
cavalier unblushingly claimed the Arethusa for his com- 
rade ! The conclusion of the interview was foregone ; of 
its humours, I remember only one. "Baronet?" de- 
manded the magistrate, glancing up from the passport. 
^'Alors, monsieur, vous etes le fils d^im baron ?^' And 
when the Cigarette (his one mistake throughout the inter- 
view) denied the soft impeachment, "Alors," from the 
Commissary, "ce ti'est pas voire passeport!'' But these 
were ineffectual thunders ; he never dreamed of laying 
hands upon the Cigarette; presently he fell into a mood 
of unrestrained admiration, gloating over the contents 
of the knapsack, commending our friend's tailor. Ah, 
what an honoured guest was the Commissary entertain- 
ing ! what suitable clothes he wore for the warm weather ! 
what beautiful maps, what an attractive work of history 



Epilogue to ''An Inland Voyage" 147 

he carried in his knapsack ! You are to understand there 
was now but one point of difference between them : what 
was to be done with the Arethusa? the Cigarette demand- 
ing his release, the Commissary still claiming him as the 
dungeon's own. Now it chanced that the Cigarette had 
passed some years of his life in Egypt, where he had made 
acquaintance with two very bad things, cholera morbus 
and pashas ; and in the eye of the Commissary, as he 
fingered the volume of Michelet, it seemed to our traveller 
there was something Turkish. I pass over this lightly ; 
it is highly possible there was some misunderstanding, 
highly possible that the Commissary (charmed with his 
visitor) supposed the attraction to be mutual and took 
for an act of growing friendship what the Cigarette himself 
regarded as a bribe. And at any rate, was there ever a 
bribe more singular than an odd volume of Michelet's 
history? The work was promised him for the morrow, 
before our departure ; and presently after, either because 
he had his price, or to show that he was not the man to 
be behind in friendly offices — ''Eh Hen,'" he said, ''je 
suppose quHl faut lacher voire camarade.'' And he tore 
up that feast of humour, the unfinished proces-verbal. 
Ah, if he had only torn up instead the Arethusa' s roundels ! 
There were many works burnt at Alexandria, there are 
many treasured in the British Museum, that I could bet- 
ter spare than the proces-verbal of Chatillon. Poor bu- 
buckled Commissary ! I begin to be sorry that he never 
had his Michelet : perceiving in him fine human traits, a 
broad-based stupidity, a gusto in his magisterial func- 
tions, a taste for letters, a ready admiration for the ad- 
mirable. And if he did not admire the Arethusa, he was 
not alone in that. 



148 An Inland Voyage 

To the imprisoned one, shivering under the public 
covering, there came suddenly a noise of bolts and chains. 
He sprang to his feet, ready to welcome a companion in 
calamity; and instead of that, the door was flung wide, 
the friendly gendarme appeared above in the strong day- 
light, and with a magnificent gesture (being probably a 
student of the drama) — '^Vous etes libreT^ he said. 
None too soon for the Arethusa. I doubt if he had been 
half an hour imprisoned; but by the watch in a man's 
brain (which was the only watch he carried) he should 
have been eight times longer; and he passed forth with 
ecstasy up the cellar stairs into the healing warmth of 
the afternoon sun; and the breath of the earth came as 
sweet as a cow's into his nostril ; and he heard again 
(and could have laughed for pleasure) the concord of 
delicate noises that we call the hum of life. 

And here it might be thought that my history ended; 
but not so, this was an act-drop and not the curtain. 
Upon what followed in front of the barrack, since there 
was a lady in the case, I scruple to expatiate. The wife 
of the Marechal-des-logis was a handsome woman, and 
yet the Arethusa was not sorry to be gone from her so- 
ciety. Something of her image, cool as a peach on that 
hot afternoon, still lingers in his memory: yet more of 
her conversation. "You have there a very fine parlour," 
said the poor gentleman. — "Ah," said Madame la 
Marechale (des-logis), "you are very well acquainted 
with such parlours!" And you should have seen with 
what a hard and scornful eye she measured the vagabond 
before her! I do not think he ever hated the Commis- 
sary ; but before that interview was at an end, he hated 
Madame la Marechale. His passion (as I am led to 



Epilogue to ''An Inland Voyage" 149 

understand by one who was present) stood confessed in 
a burning eye, a pale cheek, and a trembling utterance; 
Madame meanwhile tasting the joys of the matador, goad- 
ing him with barbed words and staring him coldly down. 

It was certainly good to be away from -this lady, and 
better still to sit down to an excellent dinner in the inn. 
Here, too, the despised travellers scraped acquaintance 
with their next neighbour, a gentleman of these parts, 
returned from the day's sport, who had the good taste to 
find pleasure in their society. The dinner at an end, the 
gentleman proposed the acquaintance should be ripened 
in the caje. 

The cafe was crowded with sportsmen conclamantly 
explaining to each other and the world the smallness of 
their bags. About the centre of the room, the Cigarette 
and the Arethusa sat with their new acquaintance; a 
trio very well pleased, for the travellers (after their late 
experience) were greedy of consideration, and their sports- 
man rejoiced in a pair of patient listeners. Suddenly the 
glass door flew open with a crash ; the Marechal-des-logis 
appeared in the interval, gorgeously belted and befrogged, 
entered without salutation, strode up the room with a 
clang of spurs and weapons, and disappeared through a 
door at the far end. Close at his heels followed the 
Arethusa's gendarme of the afternoon, imitating, with a 
nice shade of difference, the imperial bearing of his chief ; 
only, as he passed, he struck lightly with his open hand 
on the shoulder of his late captive, and with that ringing, 
dramatic utterance of which he had the secret — "SuivezT' 
said he. 

The arrest of the members, the oath of the Tennis 
Court, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, 



150 An Inland Voyage 

Mark Antony's oration, all the brave scenes of history, 
I conceive as having been not unlike that evening in the 
cafe at Chatillon. Terror breathed upon the assembly. 
A moment later, when the Arethusa had followed his re- 
captors into the farther part of the house, the Cigarette 
found himself alone with his coffee in a ring of empty 
chairs and tables, all the lusty sportsmen huddled into 
corners, all their clamorous voices hushed in whispering, 
all their eyes shooting at him furtively as at a leper. 

And the Arethusa? Well, he had a long, sometimes a 
trying, interview in the back kitchen. The Marechal- 
des-logis, who was a very handsome man, and I believe 
both intelligent and honest, had no clear opinion on the 
case. He thought the Commissary had done wrong, but 
he did not wish to get his subordinates into trouble ; and 
he proposed this, that, and the other, to all of which the 
Arethusa (with a growing sense of his position) demurred. 

"In short," suggested the Arethusa, "you want to wash 
your hands of further responsibility? Well, then, let me 
go to Paris." 

The Marechal-des-logis looked at his watch. 

"You may leave," said he, "by the ten o'clock train 
for Paris." 

And at noon the next day the travellers were telling 
their misadventure in the dining-room at Siron's. 



NOTES 

Page XXXi. Sir Walter Grindlay Simpson, Bart. : A close friend 
of Stevenson's during their student days at Edinburgh. See Bal- 
four's Life of Stevenson, Vol. I, p. 107. Burgee : A pennant bearing 
the name of the ship ; used in the merchant marine. Eleven thou- 
sand Virgins of Cologne : these virgins, according to legend, were 
massacred by the Huns at Cologne. Tricolor : the Belgian flag. 

Page xxxiv. Caleb and Joshua brought back from Palestine a for- 
midable bunch of grapes. See Numbers, xiii, 23. 

Page 1. stevedore: one who loads and unloads vessels. 
Cigarette : used throughout the narrative to designate the canoe 
and also the companion in it. Arethusa : used likewise to desig- 
nate Stevenson's canoe and himself, sheet : the rope which is fas- 
tened to the lower edge of the sail. 

Page 2. heady :" exciting," '* thrilling." 

Page 3. bagman : commercial traveller. The word connotes 
contempt. 

Page 4. barnacled: wearing spectacles. Miss Howe, Miss 
Harlowe : leading characters in Samuel Richardson's novel, Clarissa 
Harlowe (1748). Cf. Stevenson's estimate of the book in Corre- 
spondence, edited by Colvin, p. 141. huntress: Diana. Anthony: 
St. Anthony (251-356), an early saint who retired to the desert and 
founded what is thought to be the first monastic community, 
gymnosophist : a member of an ancient sect of Hindu philosophers 
who retired to a Hfe of solitary contemplation in the woods. 

Page 6. Willebroek Canal : connects Brussels with the Rupel 
and the Scheldt. " C'est vite, mais c'est long " : equivalent to, 
"You are going fast but you have a long journey." dingy: a 
small boat. 

Page 8. Etna cooking apparatus : a vessel in which water may be 

151 



152 An Inland Voyage 

heated by means of an attached alcohol burner. a la papier : " in 
paper." 

Page 9, loo-warm : " luke-warm," " tepid." 

Page 10. sterlings : piles set closely together, trepanned : a 
surgical operation in which parts of the bones of the skull are removed. 

Page 12. Laeken: the northeast suburb of Brussels. Allee 
Verte : " green lane." A double avenue of limes extending along 
the canal to Laeken. estaminet : " a public tavern." 

Page 13. Royal Sport Nautique : " Royal Nautical Sport." 
French Huguenots: the Protestants of France from 1560 until their 
extinction as a religious sect in 1685. out of great tribulation: 
cf. Revelation, vii, 14. 

Page 14. entre freres! " between brothers." " En Angleterre, 
vous employez des sliding-seats, n'est-ce pas?" "In England 
you use sliding seats, do you not?" " voyez-vous, nous sommes 
serieux " : " You see, we are serious." 

Page 15. Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell 
From Heaven : 
quoted from Milton's Paradise Lost, I, 679-680. 

Page 17. drive the coursers of the sun against Apollo : cf . the 
fable of Phaeton in Greek mythology. Gayley's Classic Myths, 
pp. 121-125. The great billows had gone over our head: cf. 
Psalms, xhi, 7.* 

Page 18. Charleroi : a manufacturing town thirty miles south 
of Brussels. He is, somehow or other, a marked man for the 
official eye : for a further description of Stevenson's personal ap- 
pearance cf. pp. 135-150 of this volume, and Colvin's Introduction 
to Letters of R. L. S., p. xxxix, and Mrs. Stevenson's note in Bio- 
graphical Edition, Prince Otto, Preface, pp. vii-x. Murray : a 
guide book issued by the publisher, John Murray. 

Page 19. knoUed to church and sat at good men's feasts: cf. 
Shakespeare's .4^ You Like It, II, vii, 113-115. Grand Cerf: 
" Great Stag." 

Page 20. ccenacula : " a supping room." The upper room in 
which Christ and his disciples ate the last supper; hence, " secret 
meeting place." 

Page 21. Drake: Sir Francis Drake (i54o(?)-i596), the first 
Englishman to see the Pacific and to circumnavigate the globe. 



Notes I S3 

Page 28. amphora : originally a large jar with two handles and 
a pointed base, used by the ancients as a wine container; hence, 
" a big vase." 

Page 29. Bluebeards : the nickname of the imaginary Chevalier 
Raoul, who was celebrated for his cruelty. beknived : " fur- 
nished with knives." Jove : in classic mythology, the gods in 
disguise often sought adventure among men. 

Page 30. hold : " stronghold," " fortress." 

Page 31. auberge : " inn." 

Page 32. Hainaulters : residents of Hainault, a frontier province 
in Belgium through which Stevenson and his friend were now passing. 
bread-berry : prepared by pouring boiling water over toast and then 
flavoring it with sugar. swipes : " weak beer." 

Page 34. Lucretian maxim: Lucretius, the Roman poet (96(?) 
B.C.-55 B.C.). The maxim is as follows : " 'Tis sweet, when the seas 
are roughened by violent winds, to view on land the toils of others, 
not that there is pleasure in seeing others in distress, but because 
man is glad to know himself secure." 

Page 35. Landau : a four-wheeled carriage, first made in Landau, 
Germany. 

Page 36. Moliere's farce : cf . Moli^re's farce, Les Precieuses 
Ridicules, scene xiv (1659). kepi : a military cap with flat top and 
horizontal visor. 

Page 37. galette : a thin cake. 

Page 41. Landrecies : a fortress on the Sombre. " VoilS de 
I'eau pour vous debarbouiller " : " There is water for washing 
your faces." Waterloo crackers : " fire crackers." In memory of 
Napoleon's victory over the combined forces of Russia and Austria 
at Austerhtz, in 1805. Waterloo Bridge: a bridge in London over 
the Thames, opened on the anniversary of the battle. 

Page 42. Mormal, a sinister name : sinister because of its as- 
sociation with morl, " death," and mal, " evil." 

Page 43. Heine: Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), the German 
poet and critic. Merlin : the magician of King Arthur, who was 
left spellbound forever in a hollow oak in the forest of Broceliande. 
Cf. Tennyson's Merlin and Vivien. 

Page 44. jeremiads : from Jeremiah, the Hebrew prophet, the 
writer of Lamentations. AppUed to utterances of woe or distress. 



154 An Inland Voyage 

Page 46. bedlamite : wild like a madman. From Bedlam, a 
hospital for the insane, in London. Marshal Clarke : Henri 
Jacques Guillaume Clarke (i 765-1818), a native of Landrecies, but 
of Irish descent. He was closely associated with Napoleon, and 
was appointed Marshal of France in 1807. 

Page 47. Lyonnese costermongers : hawkers of fruit in Lyons. 
presumptuous Hebrew prophets : cf. Numbers, xxii, 21-25. heights 
of Alma : a small river which flows into the Black Sea near Sebastopol. 
Here, in 1854, the Russians were defeated by the British, the French, 
and the Turks. Spicheren: a village in Lorraine. Here in 1870 
the Germans defeated the French. tuck : " beat or flourish." 

Page 48. bastinadoing: "cudgeling." Juge de Paix : "jus- 
tice of the peace." Scotch Sheriff Substitute: an assistant to the 
sheriff, who in Scotland is the chief local judge of a county. 

Page 51. Archangel tar : wood-tar made at Archangel, Russia. 
Loch Caron : an inlet, east of the Isle of Skye, on the west coast of 
Scotland. Just before starting on the voyage here described, Steven- 
son visited a friend near this loch. 

Page 54. HoUandais : a canary bird, bred and trained in Holland. 

Page 55. canaletti : Itahan for " little canals " ; used here for 
" those who dwell in the barges." " Cependant " : " Yet," " how- 
ever." 

Page 57. colza : " coleseed," cultivated for its oily seeds. 
shivering of the reeds : cf . the vcvyXh of the nymph Syrinx, Gayley's 
Classic Myths, pp. 93-94. Pan: the Greek god of shepherds and 
goatherds. 

Page 58. Centaur : a mythical creature, half horse, half man. 

Page 59. like a toy Burns who had just ploughed up the Moun- 
tain Daisy : cf . Burns's poem. To a Mountain Daisy. 

Page 60. " Come away, Death " : cf. Shakespeare's Twelfth 
Night, n, iv, for the song. The scene is laid in Illyria. heritors : 
in Scotland, a landowner in a parish. Birmingham-hearted sub- 
stitutes : bells manufactured in Birmingham, England. 

Page 63. queasy: "uncomfortable." 

Page 65. " O France, mes amours " : " O France, my love." 
Alsace: the war of 1870, which ended in the giving of Alsace and 
Lorraine to Germany. " Les malheurs de la France " : " The 
misfortunes of France." 



Notes 155 

Page 66. Empire : the Second Empire, the government of France 
under Napoleon III. Farmer George: George III of England, 
who was king at the time the United States gained its independence. 
Caudine Forks : two mountain passes in ancient Samnium, Italy. 
Here the Samnites defeated the Russians in 321 B.C. Conscrits 
Francais : " French conscripts." Fletcher : Andrew Fletcher 
(1653-1716), a Scotch patriot who remarked: " If a man were per- 
mitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make 
the laws of the nation." 

Page 67. Paul Deroulede : a French author and politician. See 
Chants dii Soldat, 1872-1875. 

Page 68. Othello over again : Othello won the heart of Desde- 
mona through the story of his perilous adventures. Cf. Shake- 
speare's Othello, I, iii, 128-170. 

Page 70. St. Quentin: a French town eight miles east from 
Origny. 

Page 72. his hair flourishing like Samson's : cf. Book of Judges, 
xiii-xvi; also, Milton's Samson Agonisles. " Tristes tetes de Da- 
nois! " "Sad Danish heads." Gaston Lafenestre : Gaston Ernest 
Lafenestre, a contemporary French genre painter, a pupil of Jacques. 

Page 73. Jacques : Charles Emile Jacques (1813-1894), a French 
painter and engraver. National Gallery: founded in 1824; situ- 
ated on the north side of Trafalgar Square,- London. Psalms : 
cf. Psalms, cxvi, 15. 

Page 74. Barbizon : a village near the forest of Fontainebleau, 
a favorite haunt of artists. Stevenson frequently visited the place. 
See Stevenson's essay, Fontainebleau. proletarian : a person who 
is obliged to earn his daily living. 

Page 75. Reasons are as plentiful as blackberries : cf. Shake- 
speare's Henry IV, Part I, Act II, iv, 265. pro indiviso : "all 
together," " in common." 

Page 76. " Eh bien, quoi, c'est magnifique, 5a! " " Well, now, 
that is magnificent ! " 

Page 77. the Inquisition : a court of the Roman Catholic Church, 
estabhshed in the thirteenth century, for the purpose of suppressing 
heresy. Foe's horrid story : see Edgar Allan Poe's The Pit and 
the Pendulum. Tristram Shandy: see Laurence Sterne's Tristram 
Shandy, Book I, Chap. xvii. 



156 An Inland Voyage 

Page 78. Nanty Ewart : a character in Scott's Red Gauntlet. 
See Chap, xv for the remark. Communist : one who beheves in 
holding everything in common, in abolishing private ownership. 
Communard : one who believes in community or corporation 
control.- 

Page 82. Paris Bourse : the Stock Exchange. 

Page 83. La Fere : a fortified town which was taken by the 
Germans in 1870. Niirnberg figures : busts, statuettes, and toy 
figures from Nuremberg, Germany. " C'est bon, n'est-ce pas?" 
" It is good, is it not? " 

Page 87, temple of Diana : the temple of Diana at Ephesus, 
one of the Seven Wonders of the world, which was set afire by Heros- 
tratus, for the sake of immortalizing his name. Timon : Timon of 
Athens, " hater of mankind." See Shakespeare's Timon of Athens. 

Page 88. " Bazin, aubergiste, loge a pied " : " Bazin, innkeeper, 
lodging for pedestrians." " A la Croix de Malte " : " At the 
Maltese Cross." Zola's: Emile Zola (1840-1902). See his novel, 
U Assommoir, Chap. iii. 

Page 92. H6tel de Ville : " Town hall." " Put off thy shoes 
from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground " : 
see Exodus, iii, 5. The Hotel du Nord : " Hotel of the North." 

Page 93. Sacristan : an officer of the church who has charge of 
the furnishings of the altar and of the sacred vessels. 

Page 94. Miserere : the liturgical rendering of the fifty-first 
Psalm in the Roman Catholic Church. The opening words are 
" Miserere met, Dotnine,^' " Have mercy upon me, O Lord." 

Page 95. darkling: "in the dark." See Shakespeare's King 
Lear, I, iv, 237. " Ave Mary " : a hymn to the Virgin Mary. 
" Ave Maria, ora pro nobis," " Hail Mary, pray for us." garrison 
catch : a round composed as a continuous melody. An example 
may be seen in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, II, iii. 

Page 96. Jubilate Deo: " Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.'' 
See Psalms, Ixvi and c. department : one of the eighty-seven 
parts into which France is divided in its civil administration. The 
size of these departments varies from two to three thousand square 
miles. 

Page 99. water houses: "canal-boats." Deo Gratias: 
" Thanks to God." The name of a canal boat, which had come 



Notes • 157 



all the way from Normandy. Four Sons of Aymon : these were 
Heroes of a mediaeval romance. 

Page 101. Compiegne : an old French province which bordered 
upon Lorraine and Belgium. It was noted for its wine. 

Page 102. niminy: " afifectedly delicate." Chailly road: an 
avenue near Barbizon. Gothic : Gothic is applied to the pointed 
styles of architecture which developed in northern Europe between 
the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. gargoyled : a gargoyle is 
usually a projecting water-spout grotesquely carved to represent 
the neck and head of an animal or a man. Louis XII : King 
of France from 1498 to 15 15. 

Page 103. Via Dolorosa : " Dolorous Way," the path in Jeru- 
salem which Christ traversed on His way to Calvary. 

Page 104. " Out of my country and myself I go " : ascribed by 
Stevenson to an old poet. 

Page 106. L'Isle Adam : a town fifteen miles northwest of Paris. 

Page 108. feuilletons : the lower section of the front page of a 
French newspaper which is devoted to light literature, serials, and 
criticism. 

Page 109. Bradshaw's Guide : a railway guide originated by 
George Bradshaw, a printer in Manchester, in 1839. "Walt Whit- 
man : an American poet (1819-1892), For his influence on Steven- 
son, see his essay on Whitman in Familiar Studies of Men and 
Books. 

Page 111. Nirvana: the state of complete happiness — accord- 
ing to Buddhism — in which, after death, the soul reposes and its 
individuality is absorbed by the absolute union with the infinite. 
Buddhists : followers of Buddha, a teacher and philosopher of India, 
who lived in the fifth century B.C. 

Page 113. Great Assizes : " the final judgment." 

Page 114. English wars : the wars between France and England 
from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. 

Page 115. ex voto : "as a votive offering." St. Joseph: the 
husband of the Virgin Mary. 

Page 116. St. Dominic: (11 70-1 221). The founder of the 
Dominican order of monks. According to tradition, he instituted 
the Rosary. St. Catherine: (1347-1380). A Dominican, noted 
for having had the impressions of the wounds of the crucified Christ 



158 An Inland Voyage 

miraculously reproduced on her hands, feet, and heart. Pope 
Gregory: he was pope from 1831-1846. 

Page 117. Zelatrice : a zealous nun who usually had charge of 
the correspondence and finance of the convent. dizaine : " ten 
pra^^ers." Euclid: a text-book in geometry based upon the Greek 
geometer, Euclid, who lived about 300 B.C. 

Page 120. marionettes : puppets. performance : a puppet 
show. 

Page 122. " We are not cotton-spinners all " : see Tennyson's 
poem, The Third of February, stanza viii, 1. 3. afif-n-afif : "half 
and half," a mixture of malt Hquors. 

Page 123. " 'T is better to have loved and lost " : see Tenny- 
son's In Memoriam, xxvii and Ixxxv. Endymion : in Greek my- 
thology, Endymion, a beautiful youth, was loved by Diana, the 
goddess of the moon, who charmed him into eternal sleep, and de- 
scended nightly from among the stars to kiss him. See Keats's poem, 
Endymion. Audrey : see Shakespeare's As You Like It, III, iii. 

Page 125. " Mesdames et Messieurs, 

" Mademoiselle Ferrario et M. de Vauversin auront I'honneur de 
chanter ce soir les morceaux suivants. 

"Mademoiselle Ferrario chantera — Mignon — Oiseaux Legers 
— France — Des Franfais dorment \k — le chateau bleu — Ou 
voulez-vous aller? 

" M. de Vauversin — Madame Fontaine et M. Robinet — Les 
plongeurs k cheval — Le Mari mecontent — Tais-toi, gamin — 
Mon voisin I'original — Heureux comme 5a — comme on est 
trompe." 

" Ladies and gentlemen. Miss Ferrario and Mr. de Vauversin will 
have the honor of singing this evening the following pieces : Miss 
Ferrario will sing ' Mignon,' * Birds li^tly on the Wing,' ' France,' 
' Frenchmen Sleep There,' ' The Blue Chateau,' ' Where are You 
Going ? ' ; Mr. de Vauversin, Madame Fontaine, and Mr. Robinet : 
'The Divers on Horseback,' 'The Discontented Husband,' 'Be 
Quiet, Boy,' ' My Queer Neighbor,' ' Happy like That,' ' How W^e 
are Deceived.' " 

salle-a-manger : "dining room." Chatelet : a prominent theatre 
in Paris. Alcazar : a music-hall in Paris. 

Page 126. Maire : " the mayor." 



Notes 159 

Page 127. Tenez, messieurs, je vais vous le dire : " Now then, 
gentlemen, I will tell you what it is." the Muses : the nine daugh- 
ters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, who presided over science, art, music, 
and poetry. 

Page 128. Pyramus and Thisbe : a tragical story of two lovers 
of Ancient Babylon, as related in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book IV. 
Alexandrines : verses of six iambic feet. unities : the classical 
unities of time, place, and action. patois : a local, rustic dialect. 

Page 130. Theophile Gautier : a French poet, critic, and novelist 
(1811-1872). Stevenson's allusion is to the poet's delicate percep- 
tion of color. 

Page 135. Charles of Orleans: a French poet (1391-1465), who 
gave a distinct form to the roundel. Mr. Lang : Andrew Lang 
(1844- ), Scotch critic, essayist, and poet. A friend of Steven- 
son. Mr. Dobson: Austin Dobson (1840- ). A poet and 
biographer. A friend of Stevenson. Mr. Henley : William E. 
Henley (1849-1903), a poet and critic. An intimate friend of 
Stevenson. Michelet: Jules Michelet (1798-1874). A French 
historian. 

Page 136. Villon: Francois Villon (i43i(?)-i484). A French 
poet. 

Page 137. Franco-Prussian: the war of 1870-1871. 

Page 139. Childe Roland to the dark tower came : see 
Shakespeare's King Lear, III, iv, 187; also Browning's Childe 
Roland. " Monsieur est voyageur? " " Monsieur is a traveller? " 
Bardolph's : a character in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Parts I and II. 

Page 142. Pas de plaisanterie, monsieur! " No joking, mon- 
sieur." Mais oui. Tres bien : "Yes, very well." Comment, 
monsieur! " How, monsieur ! " Enfin, il faut en finir : " It is 
necessary to make an end." Quoi? " Blackguard." 

Page 146. *' Alors, monsieur, vous etes le fils d'un baron?" 
" Then, monsieur, you are the son of a baron? " " ce n'est pas 
votre passeport! " " Then this is not your passport." 

Page 147. " Eh bien, je suppose qu'il faut lacher votre cama- 
rade " : "I suppose that it is necessary to release your companion." 
proces-verbal : " official report." Alexandria : the Saracens burned 
the famous Hbrary at Alexandria in 640 a.d. British Museum: 
in London^ founded in 1753. 



i6o An Inland Voyage 

Page 149, " Suivez! " " Follow." members: the members of 
the House of Commons who favored treating with King Charles 
were arrested, Dec. 6, 1648. Tennis Court: the French deputies 
to the States General, when they found themselves unable to enter 
their own hall because of a royal decree suspending their sittings, 
went to the Tennis Court, a large building in Versailles, and swore 
never to separate until they had drawn up a constitution for France. 
This occurred on June 20, 1789. Declaration of Independence: 
July 4, 1776. 

Page 150. Mark Antony's oration: see Shakespeare's Julius 
Ccdsar, III, ii, 78. Siron's : an inn at Barbizon. See note i, p. 
74 ; see also the Introduction. 



TRAVELS WITH A 
DONKEY 

BY 

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

EDITED FOR SCHOOL USE, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 

JAMES CLOYD BOWMAN, M.A. 

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN 
THE IOWA STATE COLLEGE 



>>»{< 



ALLYN AND BACON 
Boatan Neta gotk Cijicago 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Velay I 

The Green Donkey-driver 8 

I Have a Goad i8 

Upper Gevaudan 25 

Cheylard and Luc 39 

Our Lady of the Snows 45 

The Monks 53 

The Boarders 62 

Across the Goulet 71 

A Night among the Pines 75 

The Country of the Camisards 83 

Pont de Montvert 91 

In the Valley of the Tarn 98 

Florac 109 

In the Valley of the Mimente . . . . . .113 

The Last Day 126 

Farewell, Modestine . . , .. . . .132 
Notes -135 



My dear Sidney Colvin, 

The journey which this little book is to describe was very agreeable 
and fortunate for me. After an uncouth beginning, I had the best 
of luck to the end. But we are all travellers in what John Bunyan 
calls the wilderness of this world, — all, too, travellers with a donkey ; 
and the best that we find in our travels is an honest friend. He is 
a fortunate voyager who finds many. We travel, indeed, to find them. 
They are the end and the reward of life. They keep us worthy of 
ourselves ; and, when we are alone, we are only nearer to the absent. 

Every book is, in an intimate sense, a circular letter to the friends 
of him who writes it. They alone take his meaning; they find 
private messages, assurances of love, and expressions of gratitude 
dropped for them in every corner. The public is but a generous 
patron who defrays the postage. Yet, though the letter is directed 
to all, we have an old and kindly custom of addressing it on the out- 
side to one. Of what shall a man be proud, if he is not proud of his 
friends? And so, my dear Sidney Colvin, it is with pride that I sign 
myself affectionately yours, 

R. L. S. 



VELAY 



Many are the mighty things, and 
nought is more mighty than 
man. . . . He masters by his 
devices the tenant of the fields." 
— Antigone. 

Who hath loosed the bands of the 
wild ass ?" — Job. 




t:.! q;..^ Pont ""de.MVt vert 

Florae ^^r^<^^^jt^,^§ 




O 






°Oraiige 



Nimes< 



—44- 



Montpellier ' 



%. 



■?S>' 



O F 



Marseille i 



O N S 



Map of Travels with a Donkey 



TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 



VELAY 

The Donkey, the Pack, and the Pack- 
Saddle 

In a little place called Le Monastier, in a pleasant high- 
land valley fifteen miles from Le Puy, I spent about a 
month of fine days. Monastier is notable for the making 
of lace, for drunkenness, for freedom of language, and for 
unparalleled political dissension. There are adherents 
of each of the four French parties — Legitimists, Orlean- 
ists, Imperialists, and Republicans — in this little moun- 
tain-town; and they all hate, loathe, decry, and calum- 
niate each other. Except for business purposes, or to 
give each other the lie in a tavern brawl, they have laid 
aside even the civility of speech. 'Tis a mere mountain 
Poland. In the midst of this Babylon I found myself a 
rallying-point ; every one was anxious to be kind and 
helpful to the stranger. This was not merely from the 
natural hospitality of mountain people, nor even from the 
surprise with which I was regarded as a man living of his 
own free will in Monastier, when he might just as well 
have lived anywhere else in this big world; it arose a 
good deal from my projected excursion southward through 
the Cevennes. A traveller of my sort was a thing hitherto 



2 Travels with a Donkey- 

unheard of in that district. I was looked upon with con- 
tempt, like a man who should project a journey to the 
moon, but yet with a respectful interest, like one setting 
forth for the inclement Pole. All were ready to help in my 
preparations ; a crowd of sympathisers supported me at the 
critical moment of a bargain ; not a step w^as taken but 
was heralded by glasses round and celebrated by a dinner 
or a breakfast. 

It was already hard upon October before I was ready 
to set forth, and at the high altitudes over which my road 
lay there was no Indian summer to be looked for. I was 
determined, if not to camp out, at least to have the means 
of camping out in my possession ; for there is nothing more 
harassing to an easy mind than the necessity of reaching 
shelter by dusk, and the hospitality of a village inn is not 
always to be reckoned sure by those who trudge on foot. 
A tent, above all for a solitary traveller, is troublesome to 
pitch, and troublesome to strike again ; and even on the 
march it forms a conspicuous feature in your baggage. 
A sleeping-sack, on the other hand, is always ready — ■ 
you have only to get into it ; it serves a double purpose 
— a bed by night, a portmanteau by day ; and it does 
not advertise your intention of camping out to every 
curious passer-by. This is a huge point. If the camp is 
not secret, it is but a troubled resting-place ; you become 
a public character ; the convivial rustic visits your bedside 
after an early supper; and you must sleep with one eye 
open, and be up before the day. I decided on a sleeping- 
sack ; and after repeated visits to Le Puy, and a deal of 
high living for myself and my advisers, a sleeping-sack 
was designed, constructed, and triumphally brought 
home. 



Velay 3 

This child of my invention was nearly six feet square, 
exclusive of two triangular flaps to serve as a pillow by 
night and as the top and bottom of the sack by day. I 
call it "the sack," but it was never a sack by more than 
courtesy : only a sort of long roll or sausage, green water- 
proof cart cloth without and blue sheep's fur within. It 
was commodious as a valise, warm and dry for a bed. 
There was luxurious turning-room for one ; and at a pinch 




General View of Le Puy 

the thing might serve for two. I could bury myself in it 
up to the neck ; for my head I trusted to a fur cap, with a 
hood to fold down over my ears and a band to pass under 
my nose like a respirator ; and in case of heavy rain I pro- 
posed to make myself a little tent, or tentlet, with my 
waterproof coat, three stones, and a bent branch. 

It will readily be conceived that I could not carry this 
huge package on my own, merely human, shoulders. It 



4 Travels with a Donkey 

remained to choose a beast of burthen. Now, a horse is 
a fine lady among animals, flighty, timid, delicate in eating, 
of tender health ; he is too valuable and too restive to be 
left alone, so that you are chained to your brute as to a 
fellow galley-slave ; a dangerous road puts him out of his 
wits ; in short, he's an uncertain and exacting ally, and 
adds thirty-fold to the troubles of the voyager. What I 
required was something cheap and small and hardy, and 
of a stolid and peaceful temper; and all these requisites 
pointed to a donkey. 

There dwelt an old man in Monastier, of rather unsound 
intellect according to some, much followed by street-boys, 
and known to fame as Father Adam. Father Adam had 
a cart, and to draw the cart a diminutive she-ass, not much 
bigger than a dog, the colour of a mouse, with a kindly eye 
and a determined under- jaw. There was something neat 
and high-bred, a quakerish elegance, about the rogue 
that hit my fancy on the spot. Our first interview was 
in Monastier market-place. To prove her good temper, 
one child after another was set upon her back to ride, and 
one after another went head over heels into the air; 
until a want of confidence began to reign in youthful 
bosoms, and the experiment was discontinued from a 
dearth of subjects. I was already backed by a deputa- 
tion of my friends ; but as if this were not enough, all 
the buyers and sellers came round and helped me in the 
bargain ; and the ass and I and Father Adam were the 
centre of a hubbub for near half an hour. x\t length she 
passed into my service for the consideration of sixty-five 
francs and a glass of brandy. The sack had already cost 
eighty francs and two glasses of beer ; so that Modestine, 
as I instantly baptised her, was upon all accounts the 



Velay 5 

cheaper article. Indeed, that was as it should be; for 
she was only an appurtenance of my mattress, or self- 
acting bedstead on four castors. 

I had a last interview with Father Adam in a billiard 
room at the witching hour of dawn, when I administered 
the brandy. He professed himself greatly touched by the 
separation, and declared he had often bought white bread 
for the donkey when he had been content with black 
bread for himself ; but this, according to the best authori- 
ties, must have been a flight of fancy. He had a name in 
the village for brutally misusing the ass ; yet it is certain 
that he shed a tear, and the tear made a clean mark 
down one cheek. 

By the advice of a fallacious local saddler, a leather 
pad was made for me with rings to fasten on my bundle ; 
and I thoughtfully completed my kit and arranged my 
toilette. By way of armoury and utensils, I took a 
revolver, a little spirit-lamp and pan, a lantern and some 
halfpenny candles, a jack-knife and a large leather flask. 
The main cargo consisted of two entire changes of warm 
clothing — besides my travelling' wear of country vel- 
veteen, pilot-coat, and knitted spencer — some books, and 
my railway-rug, which, being also in the form of a bag, 
made me a double castle for cold nights. The permanent 
larder was represented by cakes of chocolate and tins of 
Bologna sausage. All this, except what I carried about 
my person, was easily stowed into the sheepskin bag; 
and by good fortune I threw in my empty knapsack, 
rather for convenience of carriage than from any thought 
that I should want it on my journey. For more imme- 
diate needs, I took a leg of cold mutton, a bottle of Beau- 
jolais, an empty bottle to carry milk, an egg-beater, and 



6 Travels with a Donkey 

a considerable quantity of black bread and white, like 
Father Adam, for myself and donkey, only in my scheme 
of things the destinations were reversed. 

Monastrians, of all shades of thought in politics, had 
agreed in threatening me with many ludicrous misadven- 
tures and with sudden death in many surprising forms. 
Cold, wolves, robbers, above all the nocturnal practical 
joker were daily and eloquently forced on my attention. 
Yet in these vaticinations, the true, patent danger was 
left out. Like Christian, it was from my pack I suffered 
by the way. Before telling my own mishaps, let me, in 
two words, relate the lesson of my experience. If the 
pack is well strapped at the ends, and hung at full length 
— not doubled, for your life — across the pack-saddle 
the traveller is safe. The saddle will certainly not fit, 
such is the imperfection of our transitory life; it will 
assuredly topple and tend to overset ; but there are stones 
on every roadside, and a man soon learns the art of cor- 
recting any tendency to overbalance with a well-adjusted 
stone. 

On the day of my departure I was up a little after five ; 
by six, we began to load the donkey; and ten minutes 
after, my hopes were in the dust. The pad would not 
stay on Modestine's back for half a moment. I returned 
it to its maker, with whom I had so contumelious a passage 
that the street outside was crowded from wall to wall 
with gossips looking on and listening. The pad changed 
hands with much vivacity; perhaps it would be more 
descriptive to say that we threw it at each other's heads ; 
and, at any rate, we were very warm and unfriendly, and 
spoke with a deal of freedom. 

I had a common donkey pack-saddle — a barde, as 



Vel 



av 



they call it — fitted upon Modestine ; and once more 
loaded her with my effects. The double sack, my pilot- 
coat (for it was warm, and I was to walk in my waist- 
coat), a great bar of black bread, and an open basket 
containing the white bread, the mutton, and the bottles, 
were all corded together in a very elaborate system of 
knots, and I looked on the result with fatuous content. 
In such a monstrous deck-cargo, all poised above the 
donkey's shoulders, wdth nothing below to balance, on a 
brand-new pack-saddle that had not yet been worn to 
fit the animal, and fastened with brand-new girths that 
might be expected to stretch and slacken by the way, 
even a very careless traveller should have seen disaster 
brewing. That elaborate system of knots, again, was 
the work of too many sympathisers to be very artfully 
designed. It is true they tightened the cords with a 
will ; as many as three at a time would have a foot against 
Modestine's quarters, and be hauling with clenched 
teeth; but I learned afterwards that one thoughtful 
person, without any exercise of force, can make a more 
solid job than half-a-dozen heated and enthusiastic 
grooms. I was then but a novice; even after the mis- 
adventure of the pad nothing could disturb my security, 
and I went forth from the stable-door as an ox goeth to 
the slaughter. 



The Green Donkey-driver 

The bell of Monastier was just striking nine as I got 
quit of these preliminary troubles and descended the hill 
through the common. As long as I was within sight of 
the windows, a secret shame and the fear of some laugh- 
able defeat withheld me from tampering with Modestine. 
She tripped along upon her four small hoofs with a sober 
daintiness of gait ; from time to time she shook her ears 
or her tail ; and she looked so small under the bundle 
that my mind misgave me. We got across the ford with- 
out difficulty — there was no doubt about the matter, 
she was docility itself — and once on the other bank, 
where the road begins to mount through pinewoods, I 
took in my right hand the unhallowed staff, and with a 
quaking spirit applied it to the donkey. Modestine 
brisked up her pace for perhaps three steps, and then 
relapsed into her former minuet. Another application had 
the same effect, and so with the third. I am worthy the 
name of an Englishman, and it goes against my conscience 
to lay my hand rudely on a female. I desisted, and looked 
her all over from head to foot ; the poor brute's knees 
were trembling and her breathing was distressed ; it was 
plain that she could go no faster on a hill. God forbid, 
thought I, that I should brutalise this innocent creature; 
let her go at her own pace, and let me patiently follow. 

What that pace was, there is no word mean enough to 
describe; it was something as much slower than a walk 

8 



Velay 9 

as a walk is slower than a run ; it kept me hanging on each 
foot for an incredible length of time ; in five minutes it 
exhausted the spirit and set up a fever in all the muscles 
of the leg. And yet I had to keep close at hand and 
measure my advance exactly upon hers ; for if I dropped 
a few yards into the rear, or went on a few yards ahead, 
Modestine came instantly to a halt and began to browse. 
The thought that this was to last from here to Alais nearly 
broke my heart. Of all conceivable journeys, this promised 
to be the most tedious. I tried to tell myself it was a 
lovely day; I tried to charm my foreboding spirit with 
tobacco ; but I had a vision ever present to me of the long, 
long roads, up hill and down dale, and a pair of figures 
ever infinitesimally moving, foot by foot, a yard to the 
minute, and, like things enchanted in a nightmare, ap- 
proaching no nearer to the goal. 

In the meantime there came up behind us a tall peasant, 
perhaps forty years of age, of an ironical snuffy counte- 
nance, and arrayed in the green tailcoat of the country. 
He overtook us hand over hand, and stopped to consider 
our pitiful advance. 

"Your donkey," says he, "is very old?" 

I told him, I believed not. 

Then, he supposed, we had come far. 

I told him, we had but newly left Monastier. 

"£^ vous marchez comme ga! '' cried he; and throwing 
back his head, he laughed long and heartily. I watched 
him, half prepared to feel offended, until he had satisfied 
his mirth; and then, "You must have no pity on these 
animals," said he ; and, plucking a switch out of a thicket, 
he began to lace Modestine about the stern-works, utter- 
ing a cry. The rogue pricked up her ears and broke into 



lo Travels with a Donkey 

a good round pace, which she kept up without flagging, 
and without exhibiting the least symptom of distress, as 
long as the peasant kept beside us. Her former pant- 
ing and shaking had been, I regret to say, a piece of 
comedy. 

My deus ex machina, before he left me, supplied some 
excellent, if inhumane, advice; presented me with the 
switch, which he declared she would feel more tenderly 
than my cane; and finally taught me the true cry or 
masonic word of donkey-drivers, ''Proot!" All the 
time, he regarded me with a comical incredulous air, 
which was embarrassing to confront; and smiled over 
my donkey-driving, as I might have smiled over his 
orthography, or his green tail-coat. But it was not my 
turn for the moment. 

I was proud of my new lore, and thought I had learned 
the art to perfection. And certainly Modestine did 
wonders for the rest of the forenoon, and I had a breath- 
ing space to look about me. It was Sabbath ; the moun- 
tain-fields were all vacant in the sunshine; and as we 
came down through St. Martin de Frugeres, the church 
was crowded to the door, there were people kneeling with- 
out upon the steps, and the sound of the priest's chant- 
ing came forth out of the dim interior. It gave me a home 
feeling on the spot; for I am a countryman of the Sab- 
bath, so to speak, and all Sabbath observances, like a 
Scotch accent, strike in me mixed feelings, grateful and 
the reverse. It is only a traveller, hurrying by like a 
person from another planet, who can rightly enjoy the 
peace and beauty of the great ascetic feast. The sight 
of the resting country does his spirit good. There is 
something better than music in the wide unusual silence ; 



Velay ii 

and it disposes him to amiable thoughts, Hke the sound 
of a Uttle river or the warmth of sunHght. 

In this pleasant humour I came down the hill to where 
Goudet stands in the green end of a valley, with Chateau 
Beaufort opposite upon a rocky steep, and the stream, 
as clear as crystal, lying in a deep pool between them. 
Above and below, you may hear it wimpling over the 
stones, an amiable stripling of a river, which it seems 
absurd to call the Loire. On all sides, Goudet is shut in 
by mountains ; rocky foot-paths, practicable at best for 
donkeys, join it to the outer world of France ; and the 
men and women drink and swear, in their green corner, 
or look up at the snow-clad peaks in winter from the 
threshold of their homes, in an isolation, you would think, 
like that of Homer's Cyclops. But it is not so ; the 
postman reaches Goudet with the letter-bag ; the aspiring 
youth of Goudet are within a day's walk of the railway 
at Le Puy ; and here in the inn you may find an engraved 
portrait of the host's nephew. Regis Senac, "Professor 
of Fencing and Champion of the two Americas," a dis- 
tinction gained by him, along with the sum of five hun- 
dred dollars, at Tammany Hall, New York, on the loth 
April, 1876. 

I hurried over my midday meal, and was early forth 
again. But, alas, as we climbed the interminable hill 
upon the other side, "Proot!" seemed to have lost its 
virtue. I prooted like a lion, I prooted mellifluously like 
a sucking-dove ; but Modestine would be neither softened 
nor intimidated. She held doggedly to her pace; noth- 
ing but a blow would move her, and that only for a second. 
I must follow at her heels, incessantly belabouring. A 
moment's pause in this ignoble toil, and she relapsed into 



12 Travels with a Donkey 

her own private gait. I think I never heard of any one 
in as mean a situation. I must reach the lake of Bouchet, 
where I meant to camp, before sundown, and, to have 
even a hope of this, I must instantly maltreat this uncom- 
plaining animal. The sound of my own blows sickened 
me. Once, when I looked at her, she had a faint resem- 
blance to a lady of my acquaintance who formerly loaded 
me with kindness; and this increased my horror of my 
cruelty. 

To make matters worse, we encountered another 
donkey, ranging at will upon the roadside; and this 
other donkey chanced to be a gentleman. He and 
Modestine met nickering for joy, and I had to separate 
the pair and beat down their young romance with a re- 
newed and feverish bastinado. If the other donkey had 
had the heart of a male under his hide, he would have fallen 
upon me tooth and hoof ; and this was a kind of conso- 
lation — he was plainly unworthy of Modestine's affec- 
tion. But the incident saddened me, as did everything 
that spoke of my donkey's sex. 

It was blazing hot up the valley, windless, with vehe- 
ment sun upon my shoulders; and I had to labour so 
consistently with my stick that the sweat ran into my 
eyes. Every five minutes, too, the pack, the basket, and 
the pilot-coat would take an ugly slew to one side or the 
other; and I had to stop Modestine, just when I had 
got her to a tolerable pace of about two miles an hour, 
to tug, push, shoulder, and readjust the load. And at 
last, in the village of Ussel, saddle and all, the whole 
hypothec turned round and grovelled in the dust below 
the donkey's belly. She, none better pleased, incon- 
tinently drew up and seemed to smile; and a party of 



Velay 13 

one man, two women, and two children came up, and, 
standing round me in a half-circle, encouraged her by their 
example. 

I had the devil's own trouble to get the thing righted ; 
and the instant I had done so, without hesitation, it 
toppled and fell down upon the other side. Judge if I 
was hot ! And yet not a hand was offered to assist me. 
The man, indeed, told me I ought to have a package of a 
different shape. I suggested, if he knew nothing better 
to the point in my predicament, he might hold his tongue. 
And the good-natured dog agreed with me smilingly. 
It was the most despicable fix. I must plainly content 
myself with the pack for Modestine, and take the follow- 
ing items for my own share of the portage: a cane, a 
quart fiask, a pilot-jacket heavily weighted in the pockets, 
two pounds of black bread, and an open basket full of 
meats and bottles. I beheve I may say I am not devoid 
of greatness of soul; for I did not recoil from this in- 
famous burthen. I disposed it. Heaven knows how, so 
as to be mildly portable, and then proceeded to steer 
Modestine through the village. She tried, as was indeed 
her invariable habit, to enter every house and every court- 
yard in the whole length; and, encumbered as I was, 
without a hand to help myself, no words can render an 
idea of my difficulties. A priest, with six or seven others, 
was examining a church in process of repair, and he and 
his acolytes laughed loudly as they saw my plight. I 
remembered having laughed myself when I had seen good 
men struggling with adversity in the person of a jackass, 
and the recollection filled me with penitence. That was 
in my old light days, before this trouble came upon 
me. God knows at least that I shall never laugh again, 



14 Travels with a Donkey 

thought I. But O, what a cruel thing is a farce to those 
engaged in it ! 

A little out of the village, Modestine, filled with the 
demon, set her heart upon a by-road, and positively re- 
fused to leave it. I dropped all my bundles, and, I am 
ashamed to say, struck the poor sinner twice across the 
face. It was pitiful to see her lift up her head with shut 
eyes, as if waiting for another blow. I came very near 
crying ; but I did a wiser thing than that, and sat squarely 
down by the roadside to consider my situation under the 
cheerful influence of tobacco and a nip of brandy. Mo- 
destine, in the meanwhile, munched some black bread 
with a contrite hypocritical air. It was plain that I 
must make a sacrifice to the gods of shipwreck. I threw 
away the empty bottle destined to carry milk; I threw 
away my own white bread, and, disdaining to act by 
general average, kept the black bread for Modestine; 
lastly, I threw away the cold leg of mutton and the egg- 
whisk, although this last was dear to my heart. Thus I 
found room for everything in the basket, and even stowed 
the boating-coat on the top. By means of an end of cord 
I slung it under one arm ; and although the cord cut my 
shoulder, and the jacket hung almost to the ground, it 
was with a heart greatly lightened that I set forth again. 
. I had now an arm free to thrash Modestine, and cruelly 
I chastised her. If I were to reach the lakeside before 
dark, she must bestir her little shanks to some tune. 
Already the sun had gone down into a windy-looking 
mist; and although there were still a few streaks of gold 
far off to the east on the hills and the black fir-woods, all 
was cold and grey about our onward path. An infinity 
of Httle country by-roads led hither and thither among 



Velay 15 

the fields. It was the most pointless labyrinth. I could 
see my destination overhead, or rather the peak that 
dominates it; but choose as I pleased, the roads always 
ended by turning away from it, and sneaking back towards 
the valley, or northward along the margin of the hills. 
The failing light, the waning colour, the naked, unhomely, 
stony country through which I was travelling, threw me 
into some despondency. I promise you, the stick was 
not idle; I think every decent step that Modestine took 
must have cost me at least two emphatic blows. There 
was not another sound in the neighbourhood but that of 
my unwearying bastinado. 

Suddenly, in the midst of my toils, the load once more 
bit the dust, and, as by enchantment, all the cords were 
simultaneously loosened, and the road scattered with my 
dear possessions. The packing was to begin again from 
the beginning; and as I had to invent a new and better 
system, I do not doubt but I lost half an hour. It began 
to be dusk in earnest as I reached a wilderness of turf and 
stones. It had the air of being a road which should lead 
everywhere at the same time; and I was falling into 
something not unlike despair when I saw two figures 
stalking towards me over the stones. They walked one 
behind the other like tramps, but their pace was remark- 
able. The son led the way, a tall, ill-made, sombre, 
Scotch-looking man ; the mother followed, all in her Sun- 
day's best, with an elegantly-embroidered ribbon to her 
cap, and a new felt hat atop, and proffering, as she strode 
along with kilted petticoats, a string of obscene and 
blasphemous oaths. 

I hailed the son and asked him my direction. He 
pointed loosely west and north-west, muttered an in- 



l6 Travels with a Donkey 

audible comment, and, without slacking his pace for an 
instant, stalked on, as he was going, right athwart my 
path. The mother followed without so much as raising 
her head. I shouted and shouted after them, but they 
continued to scale the hillside, and turned a deaf ear to 
my outcries. At last, leaving Modestine by herself, I 
was constrained to run after them, hailing the while. 
They stopped as I drew near, the mother still cursing; 
and I could see she was a handsome, motherly, respectable- 
looking woman. The son once more answered me roughly 
and inaudibly, and was for setting out again. But this 
time I simply collared the mother, who w^as nearest me, 
and, apologising for my violence, declared that I could 
not let them go until they had put me on my road. They 
w^re neither of them offended — rather mollified than 
otherwise ; told me I had only to follow^ them ; and then 
the mother asked me what I wanted by the lake at such 
an hour. I replied, in the Scotch manner, by inquiring 
if she had far to go herself. She told me, with another 
oath, that she had an hour and a half's road before her. 
And then, without salutation, the pair strode forward 
again up the hillside in the gathering dusk. 

I returned for Modestine, pushed her briskly forward, 
and, after a sharp ascent of twenty minutes, reached the 
edge of a plateau. The view, looking back on my day's 
journey, was both wild and sad. Mount Mezenc and 
the peaks beyond St. Julien stood out in trenchant gloom 
against a cold glitter in the east ; and the intervening 
field of hills had fallen together into one broad wash of 
shadow, except here and there the outline of a wooded 
sugar-loaf in black, here and there a white irregular patch 
to represent a cultivated farm, and here and there a blot 



Velay 17 

where the Loire, the Gazeille, or the Lausonne wandered 
in a gorge. 

Soon we were on a highroad, and surprise seized on 
my mind as I beheld a village of some magnitude close 
at hand ; for I had been told that the neighbourhood of the 
lake was uninhabited except by trout. The road smoked 
in the twilight with children driving home cattle from the 
fields; and a pair of mounted stride-legged women, hat 
and cap and all, dashed past me at a hammering trot 
from the canton where they had been to church and 
market. I asked one of the children where I was. At 
Bouchet St. Nicolas, he told me. Thither, about a mile 
south of my destination, and on the other side of a re- 
spectable summit, had these confused roads and treacher- 
ous peasantry conducted me. My shoulder was cut, so 
that it hurt sharply ; my arm ached like toothache from 
perpetual beating ; I gave up the lake and my design to 
camp, and asked for the auberge. 



I Have a Goad 

The auberge of Bouchet St. Nicolas was among the 
least pretentious I have ever visited ; but I saw many more 
of the like upon my journey. Indeed, it was typical of 
these French highlands. Imagine a cottage of two 
stories, with a bench before the door; the stable and 
kitchen in a suite, so that Modestine and I could hear 
each other dining ; furniture of the plainest, earthen 
floors, a single bed-chamber for travellers, and that 
without any convenience but beds. In the kitchen cook- 
ing and eating go forward side by side, and the family 
sleep at night. Any one who has a fancy to wash must 
do so in public at the common table. The food is some- 
times spare ; hard fish and omelette have been my por- 
tion more than once; the wine is of the smallest, the 
brandy abominable to man ; and the visit of a fat sow 
grunting under the table and rubbing against your legs, 
is no impossible accompaniment to dinner. 

But the people of the inn, in nine \„ases out of ten, show 
themselves friendly and considerate. As soon as you 
cross the doors you cease to be a stranger ; and although 
this peasantry are rude and forbidding on the highway, 
they show a tincture of kind breeding when you share 
their hearth. At Bouchet, for instance, I uncorked my 
bottle of Beaujolais, and asked the host to join me. He 
would take but little. 

i8 



Velay 19 

"I am an amateur of such wine, do you see?" he said, 
''and I am capable of leaving you not enough." 

In these hedge-inns the traveller is expected to eat 
with his own knife; unless he ask, no other will be sup- 
plied : with' a glass, a whang of bread, and an iron fork, 
the table is completely laid. My knife was cordially 
admired by the landlord of Bouchet, and the spring filled 
him with wonder. 

"I should never have guessed that," he said. ''I 
would bet," he added, weighing it in his hand, '' that this 
cost you not less than five francs." 

When I told him it had cost me twenty, his jaw dropped. 

He was a mild, handsome, sensible, friendly old man, 
astonishingly ignorant. His wife, who was not so pleasant 
in her manners, knew how to read, although I do not 
suppose she ever did so. She had a share of brains and 
spoke with a cutting emphasis, like one who ruled the 
roast. 

"My man knows nothing," she said, with an angry 
nod; "he is like the beasts." 

And the old gentlenian signified acquiescence with his 
head. There was no contempt on her part, and no shame 
on his; the facts were accepted loyally, and no more 
about the matter. 

I was tightly cross-examined about my journey; and 
the lady understood in a moment, and sketched out 
what I should put into my book when I got home. 
"Whether people harvest or not in such or such a place; 
if there were forests ; studies of manners ; what, for 
example, I and the master of the house say to you ; the 
beauties of Nature, and all that." And she interrogated 
me with a look. 



20 Travels with a Donkey 

"It is just that," said I. 

''You see," she added to her husband, "I understood 
that." 

They were both much interested by the story of my 
misadventures. 

''In the morning," said the husband, "I will make 
you something better than your cane. Such a beast as 
that feels nothing ; it is in the proverb — dur conime un 
due; you might beat her insensible with a cudgel, and 
yet you would arrive nowhere." 

Something better ! I little knew what he was offering. 

The sleeping-room was furnished with two beds. I 
had one ; and I will own I was a little abashed to find a 
young man and his wife and child in the act of mounting 
into the other. This was my first experience of the sort ; 
and if I am always to feel equally silly and extraneous, I 
pray God it be my last as well. I kept my eyes to my- 
self, and know nothing of the woman except that she had 
beautiful arms, and seemed no whit abashed by my 
appearance. As a matter of fact, the situation was more 
trying to me than to the pair. A pair keep each other in 
countenance ; it is the single gentleman who has to blush. 
But I could not help attributing my sentiments to the 
husband, and sought to conciliate his tolerance with a 
cup of brandy from my flask. He told me that he was a 
cooper of Alais travelling to St. Etienne in search of 
work, and that in his spare moments he followed the fatal 
calling of a maker of matches. Me he readily enough 
divined to be a brandy merchant. 

I was up first in the morning (Monday, September 23d), 
and hastened my toilette guiltily, so as to leave a clear 
field for madam, the cooper's wife. I drank a bowl of 



Velay 21 

milk, and set off to explore the neighbourhood of Bouchet. 
It was perishing cold, a grey, windy, wintry morning; 
misty clouds flew fast and low ; the wind piped over the 
naked platform ; and the only speck of colour was away 
behind Mount Mezenc and the eastern hills, where the 
sky still wore the orange of the dawn. 

It was five in the morning, and four thousand feet 
above the sea ; and I had to bury my hands in my pockets 
and trot. People were trooping out to the labours of the 
field by twos and threes, and all turned round to stare 
upon the stranger. I had seen them coming back last 
night, I saw them going afield again ; and there was the 
life of Bouchet in a nutshell. 

When I came back to the inn for a bit of breakfast 
the landlady was in the kitchen combing out her daugh- 
ter's hair; and I made her my compliments upon its 
beauty. 

"O no," said the mother; "it is not so beautiful as it 
ought to be. Look, it is too fine." 

Thus does a wise peasantry console itself under adverse 
physical circumstances, and, by a startling democratic 
process, the defects of the majority decide the type of 
beauty. 

"And where," said I, "is monsieur?" 

"The master of the house is up-stairs," she answered, 
"making you a goad." 

Blessed be the man who invented goads ! Blessed the 
innkeeper of Bouchet St. Nicolas, who introduced me 
to their use ! This plain wand, with an eighth of an inch 
of pin, was indeed a sceptre when he put it in my hands. 
Thenceforward Modestine was my slave. A prick, and 
she passed the most inviting stable-door. A prick, and 



22 Travels with a Donkey 

she broke forth into a gallant little trotlet that devoured 
the miles. It was not a remarkable speed, when all was 
said ; and we took four hours to cover ten miles at the 
best of it. But what a heavenly change since yesterday ! 
No more wielding of the ugly cudgel ; no more flailing 
with an aching arm ; no more broadsword exercise, but a 
discreet and gentlemanly fence. And what although now 
and then a drop of blood should appear on Modestine's 
mouse-coloured wedge-like rump? I should have pre- 
ferred it otherwise, indeed; but yesterday's exploits had 
purged my heart of all humanity. The perverse little 
devil, since she would not be taken with kindness, must 
even go with pricking. 

It was bleak and bitter cold, and, except a cavalcade 
of stride-legged ladies and a pair of postrunners, the road 
was dead solitary all the way to Pradelles. I scarce re- 
member an incident but one. A handsome foal with a 
bell about his neck came charging up to us upon a stretch 
of common, sniffed the air martially as one about to do 
great deeds, and, suddenly thinking otherwise in his 
green young heart, put about and galloped off as he had 
come, the bell tinkling in the wind. For a long while 
afterwards I saw his noble attitude as he drew up, and 
heard the note of his bell; and when I struck the high- 
road, the song of the telegraph-wires seemed to continue 
the same music. 

Pradelles stands on a hillside, high above the Allier, 
surrounded by rich meadows. They were cutting after- 
math on all sides, which gave the neighbourhood, this 
gusty autumn morning, an untimely smell of hay. On 
the opposite bank of the Allier the land kept mounting 
for miles to the horizon : a tanned and sallow autumn 




The Abbey of Mount St. Michael at Le Puy 



Velay 23 

landscape, with black blots of fir-wood and white roads 
wandering through the hills. Over all this the clouds 
shed a uniform and purplish shadow, sad and somewhat 
menacing, exaggerating height and distance, and throw- 
ing into still higher relief the twisted ribbons of the high- 
way. It was a cheerless prospect, but one stimulating to 
a traveller. For I was now upon the limit of Velay, and 
all that I beheld lay in another county — wild Gevaudan, 
mountainous, uncultivated, and but recently disforested 
from terror of the wolves. 

Wolves, alas, like bandits, seem to flee the traveller's 
advance; and you may trudge through all our comfort- 
able Europe, and not meet with an adventure worth the 
name. But here, if anywhere, a man was on the frontiers 
of hope. For this was the land of the ever-memorable 
Beast, the Napoleon Buonaparte of wolves. What a 
career was his ! He lived ten months at free quarters in 
Gevaudan and Vivarais ; he ate women and children and 
*' shepherdesses celebrated for their beauty"; he pursued 
armed horsemen; he has been seen at broad noonday 
chasing a postchaise and outrider along the king's high- 
road, and chaise and outrider fleeing before him at the 
gallop. He was placarded like a political offender, and 
ten thousand francs were offered for his head. And yet, 
when he was shot and sent to Versailles, behold ! a com- 
mon wolf, and even small for that. ''Though I could 
reach from pole to pole," sang Alexander Pope ; the little 
corporal shook Europe ; and if all wolves had been as 
this wolf, they would have changed the history of man. 
M. Elie Berthet has made him the hero of a novel, which 
I have read, and do not wish to read again. 

I hurried over my lunch, and was proof against the 



24 Travels with a Donkey- 

landlady's desire that I should visit our Lady of Pradelles, 
''who performed many miracles, although she was of 
wood" ; and before three quarters of an hour I was goad- 
ing Modestine down the steep descent that leads to Lan- 
gogne on the Allier. On both sides of the road, in big 
dusty fields, farmers were preparing for next spring. 
Every fifty yards a yoke of great-necked stolid oxen were 
patiently haling at the plough. I saw one of these mild, 
formidable servants of the glebe, who took a sudden in- 
terest in Modestine and me. The furrow down which 
he was journeying lay at an angle to the road, and his 
head was solidly fixed to the yoke like those of caryatides 
below a ponderous cornice ; but he screwed round. his big 
honest eyes and followed us with a ruminating look, until 
his master bade him turn the plough and proceed to re- 
ascend the field. From all these furrowing ploughshares, 
from the feet of oxen, from a labourer here and there who 
was breaking the dry clods with a hoe, the wind carried 
away a thin dust like so much smoke. It was a fine, 
busy, breathing, rustic landscape; and as I continued to 
descend, the highlands of Gevaudan kept mounting in 
front of me against the sky. 

I had crossed the Loire the day before; now I was to 
cross the Allier ; so near are these two confluents in their 
youth. Just at the bridge of Langogne, as the long- 
promised rain was beginning to fall, a lassie of some 
seven or eight addressed me in the sacramental phrase, 
^'D^ou'st que vous venez?'' She did it with so high an 
air that she set me laughing ; and this cut her to the quick. 
She was evidently one who reckoned on respect, and stood 
looking after me in silent dudgeon, as I crossed the bridge 
and entered the county of Gevaudan. 



UPPER GEVAUDAN 



The way also here was very weari- 
some throiigh dirt and slabbi- 
ness ; nor was there on all this 
ground so mtich as one inn or 
victualling-house wherein to re- 
fresh the feebler sort." — Pil- 
grim's Progress. 



UPPER GEVAUDAN 

A Camp in the Dark 

The next day (Tuesday, September 24th), it was two 
o'clock in the afternoon before I got my journal written 
up and my knapsack repaired, for I was determined to 
carry my knapsack in the future and have no more ado 
with baskets; and half an hour afterwards I set out for 
Le Cheylard I'Eveque, a place on the borders of the forest 
of Mercoire. A man, I was told, should walk there in an 
hour and a half; and I thought it scarce too ambitious 
to suppose that a man encumbered with a donkey might 
cover the same distance in four hours. 

All the way up the long hill from Langogne it rained 
and hailed alternately ; the wind kept freshening steadily, 
although slowly ; plentiful hurrying clouds — some drag- 
ging veils of straight rainshower, others massed and 
luminous, as though promising snow — careered out of 
the north and followed me along my way. I was soon 
out of the cultivated basin of the AUier, and away from 
the ploughing oxen, and such-like sights of the country. 
Moor, heathery marsh, tracts of rock and pines, woods of 
birch all jewelled with the autumn yellow, here and there 
a few naked cottages and bleak fields, — these were the 
characters of the country. Hill and valley followed valley 
and hill ; the little green and stony cattle-tracks wandered 
in and out of one another, spUt into three or four, died 

27 



28 Travels with a Donkey 

away in marshy hollows, and began again sporadically on 
hillsides or at the borders of a wood. 

There was no direct road to Cheylard, and it was no 
easy affair to make a passage in this uneven country and 
through this intermittent labyrinth of tracks. It must 
have been about four when I struck Sagnerousse, and 
went on my way rejoicing in a sure point of departure. 
Two hours afterwards, the dusk rapidly falling, in a lull 
of the wind, I issued from a fir- wood where I had long 
been wandering, and found, not the looked-for village, 
but another marish bottom among rough-and-tumble 
hills. For some time past I had heard the ringing of 
cattle-bells ahead ; and now, as I came out of the skirts 
of the wood, I saw near upon a dozen cows and perhaps 
as many more black figures, which I conjectured to be 
children, although the mist had almost unrecognisably 
exaggerated their forms. These were all silently follow- 
ing each other round and round in a circle, now taking 
hands, now breaking up with chains and reverences. A 
dance of children appeals to very innocent and lively 
thoughts ; but, at nightfall on the marshes, the thing was 
eerie and fantastic to behold. Even I, who am well enough 
read in Herbert Spencer, felt a sort of silence fall for an 
instant on my mind. The next, I was pricking Modes- 
tine forward, and guiding her like an unruly ship through 
the open. In a path, she went doggedly ahead of her own 
accord, as before a fair wind ; but once on the turf or 
among heather, and the brute became demented. The 
tendency of lost travellers to go round in a circle was 
developed in her to the degree of passion, and it took all 
the steering I had in me to keep even a decently straight 
course through a single field. 



upper Gevaudan 29 

While I was thus desperately tacking through the bog, 
children and cattle began to disperse, until only a pair of 
girls remained behind. From these I sought direction on 
my path. The peasantry in general were but little dis- 
posed to counsel a wayfarer. One old devil simply retired 
into his house, and barricaded the door on my approach ; 
and I might beat and shout myself hoarse, he turned a 
deaf ear. Another, having given me a direction which, 
as I found afterwards, I had misunderstood, complacently 
watched me going wrong without adding a sign. He did 
not care a stalk of parsley if I wandered all night upon 
the hills ! As for these two girls, they were a pair of 
impudent sly sluts, with not a thought but mischief. 
One put out her tongue at me, the other bade me follow 
the cows ; and they both giggled and jogged each other's 
elbows. The Beast of Gevaudan ate about a hundred 
children of this district; I began to think of him with 
sympathy. 

Leaving the girls, I pushed on through the bog, and 
got into another wood and upon a well-marked road. It 
grew darker and darker. Modestine, suddenly beginning 
to smell mischief, bettered the pace of her own accord, 
and from that time forward gave me no trouble. It was 
the first sign of intelligence I had occasion to remark in 
her. At the same time, the wind freshened into half a 
gale, and another heavy discharge of rain came flying up 
out of the north. At the other side of the wood I 
sighted some red windows in the dusk. This was the 
hamlet of Fouzilhic ; three houses on a hillside, near 
a wood of birches. Here I found a delightful old man, 
who came a little way with me in the rain to put me 
safely on the road for Cheylard. He would hear of no 



30 Travels with a Donkey 

reward; but shook his hands above his head almost 
as if in menace, and refused volubly and shrilly, in 
unmitigated patois. 

All seemed right at last. My thoughts began to turn 
upon dinner and a fireside, and my heart was agreeably 
softened in my bosom. Alas, and I was on the brink of 
new and greater miseries ! Suddenly, at a single swoop, 
the night fell. I have been abroad in many a black night, 
but never in a blacker. A glimmer of rocks, a glimmer of 
the track where it was well beaten, a certain fleecy dens- 
ity, or night within night, for a tree, — this was all that 
I could discriminate. The sky was simply darkness over- 
head ; even the flying clouds pursued their way invisibly 
to human eyesight. I could not distinguish my hand at 
arm's length from the track, nor my goad, at the same 
distance, from the meadows or the sky. 

Soon the road that I was following split, after the 
fashion of the country, into three or four in a piece of 
rocky meadow. Since Modestine had shown such a fancy 
for beaten roads, I tried her instinct in this predicament. 
But the instinct of an ass is what might be expected from 
the name ; in half a minute she was clambering round and 
round among some boulders, as lost a donkey as you 
would wish to see. I should have camped long before 
had I been properly provided ; but as this was to be so 
short a stage, I had brought no wine, no bread for myself, 
and a little over a pound for my lady-friend. Add to 
this, that I and Modestine were both handsomely wetted 
by the showers. But now, if I could have found some 
water, I should have camped at once in spite of all. Water, 
however, being entirely absent, except in the form of rain, 
I determined to return to Fouzilhic, and ask a guide a 



Upper Gevaudan 31 

little further on my way — "a little farther lend thy 
guiding hand." 

The thing was easy to decide, hard to accomplish. In 
this sensible roaring blackness I was sure of nothing but 
the direction of the wind. To this I set my face; the 
road had disappeared, and I went across country, now in 
marshy opens, now baffled by walls unscalable to Modes- 
tine, until I came once more in sight of some red windows. 
This time they were differently disposed. It was not 
Fouzilhic, but Fouzilhac, a hamlet little distant from the 
other in space, but worlds away in the spirit of its in- 
habitants. I tied Modestine to a gate, and groped for- 
ward, stumbling among rocks, plunging mid-leg in bog, 
until I gained the entrance of the village. In the first 
lighted house there was a woman who would not open to 
me. She could do nothing, she cried to me through the 
door, being alone and lame ; but if I would apply at the 
next house, there was a man who could help me if he had 
a mind. 

They came to the next door in force, a man, two women, 
and a girl, and brought a pair of lanterns to examine the 
wayfarer. The man was not ill-looking, but had a shifty 
smile. He leaned against the door-post, and heard me 
state my case. All I asked was a guide as far as Cheylard. 

^'C'est que, voyez-vous, il fait noir,'' said he. 

I told him that was just my reason for requiring help. 

"I understand that," said he, looking uncomfortable; 
^'rnais — c'est — de la peine.'" 

I was willing to pay, I said. He shook his head. I 
rose as high as ten francs ; but he continued to shake his 
head. ''Name your own price, then," said I. 

''Ce n'est pas ^a," he said at length, and with evident 



32 Travels with a Donkey 

difficulty ; ''but I am not going to cross the door — mats 
je ne sortirai pas de la porte.^' 

I grew a little warm, and asked him what he proposed 
that I should do. 

"Where are you going beyond Cheylard?" he asked 
by way of answer. 

''That is no affair of yours," I returned, for I was not 
going to indulge his bestial curiosity ; "it changes nothing 
in my present predicament." 

^^Oest vrai, ^a," he acknowledged, with a laugh; ''ouiy 
c^est vrai. Et d'ou venez-vous?'' 

A better man than I might have felt nettled. 

"O," said I, "I am not going to answer any of your 
questions, so you may spare yourself the trouble of put- 
ting them. I am late enough already; I want help. If 
you will not guide me yourself, at least help me to find 
some one else who will." 

"Hold on," he cried suddenly. "Was it not you who 
passed in the meadow while it was still day?" 

"Yes, yes," said the girl, whom I had not hitherto 
recognised ; "it was monsieur ; I told him to follow the 
cow." 

"As for you, mad-emoiselle," said I, "you are a far- 
ceuse." 

"And," added the man, "what the devil have you done 
to be still here?" 

What the devil, indeed! But there I was. "The 
great thing," said I, "is to make an end of it" ; and once 
more proposed that he should help me to find a guide. 

"C'^5/ que,'^ he said again, '^c'est que — il fait noir^ 

"Very well," said I ; "take one of your lanterns." 

"No," he cried, drawing a thought backward, and 



upper Gevaudan 33 

again intrenching himself behind one of his former phrases ; 
"I will not cross the door." 

I looked at him. I saw unaffected terror struggling 
on his face with unaffected shame; he was smiling piti- 
fully and wetting his lip with his tongue, like a detected 
school-boy. I drew a brief picture of my state, and asked 
him what I was to do. 

''I don't know," he said; "I will not cross the door." 

Here was the Beast of Gevaudan, and no mistake. 

''Sir," said I, with my most commanding manners-, 
*'you are a coward." 

And with that I turned my back upon the family party, 
who hastened to retire within their fortifications ; and the 
famous door was closed again, but not till I had over- 
heard the sound of laughter. Filia barbara pater bar- 
barior. Let me say it in the plural : the Beasts of 
Gevaudan. 

The lanterns had somewhat dazzled me, and I ploughed 
distressfully among stones and rubbish-heaps. All the 
other houses in the village were both dark and silent; 
and though I knocked at here and there a door, my knock- 
ing was unanswered. It was a bad business ; I gave up 
Fouzilhac with my curses. The rain had stopped, and 
the wind, which still kept rising, began to dry my coat 
and trousers. "Very well," thought I, "water or no 
water, I must camp." But the first thing was to return 
to Modestine. I am pretty sure I was twenty minutes 
groping for my lady in the dark ; and if it had not been 
for the unkindly services of the bog, into which I once 
more stumbled, I might have still been groping for her 
at the dawn. My next business was to gain the shelter 
of a wood, for the wind was cold as well as boisterous. 



34 Travels with a Donkey 

How, in this well-wooded district, I should have been so 
long in finding one, is another of the insoluble mysteries 
of this day's adventures ; but I will take my oath that I 
put near an hour to the discovery. 

At last black trees began to show upon my left, and, 
suddenly crossing the road, made a cave of unmitigated 
blackness right in front. I call it a cave without exag- 
geration ; to pass below that arch of leaves was like enter- 
ing a dungeon. I felt about until my hand encountered 
a stout branch, and to this I tied Modestine, a haggard, 
drenched, desponding donkey. Then I lowered my pack, 
laid it along the wall on the margin of the road, and un- 
buckled the straps. I knew well enough where the lan- 
tern was; but where were the candles? I groped and 
groped among the tumbled articles, and, while I was thus 
groping, suddenly I touched the spirit-lamp. Salvation ! 
This would serve my turn as well. The wind roared un- 
wearyingly among the trees; I could hear the boughs 
tossing and the leaves churning through half a mile of 
forest ; yet the scene of my encampment was not only as 
black as the pit, but admirably sheltered. At the second 
match the wick caught flame. The light was both livid 
and shifting; but it cut me off from the universe, and 
doubled the darkness of the surrounding night. 

I tied Modestine more conveniently for herself, and 
broke up half the black bread for her supper, reserving the 
other half against the morning. Then I gathered what I 
should want within reach, took off my wet boots and 
gaiters, which I wrapped in my waterproof, arranged my 
knapsack for a pillow under the flap of my sleeping-bag, 
insinuated my limbs into the interior, and buckled myself 
in like a bambino. I opened a tin of Bologna sausage and 



upper Gevaudan 35 

broke a cake of chocolate, and that was all I had to eat. 
It may sound offensive, but I ate them together, bite by 
bite, by way of bread and meat. All I had to wash 
down this revolting mixture was neat brandy ; a revolting 
beverage in itself. But I was rare and hungry ; ate well, 
and smoked one of the best cigarettes in my experience. 
Then I put a stone in my straw hat, pulled the flap of 
my fur cap over my neck and eyes, put my revolver 
ready to my hand, and snuggled well down among the 
sheepskins. 

I questioned at first if I were sleepy, for I felt my heart 
beating faster than usual, as if with an agreeable excite- 
ment to which my mind remained a stranger. But as 
soon as my eyelids touched, that subtle glue leaped be- 
tween them, and they would no more come separate. 

The wind among the trees was my lullaby. Some- 
times it sounded for minutes together with a steady even 
rush, not rising nor abating; and again it would swell 
and burst like a great crashing breaker, and the trees 
would patter me all over with big drops from the rain of 
the afternoon. Night after night, in my own bedroom 
in the country, I have given ear to this perturbing concert 
of the wind among the woods ; but whether it was a dif- 
ference in the trees, or the lie of the ground, or because I 
was myself outside and in the midst of it, the fact remains 
that the wind sang to a different tune among these woods 
of Gevaudan. I hearkened and hearkened; and mean- 
while sleep took gradual possession of my body and sub- 
dued my thoughts and senses ; but still my last waking 
effort was to listen and distinguish, and my last conscious 
state was one of wonder at the foreign clamour in my ears. 

Twice in the course of the dark hours — once when a 



36 Travels with a Donkey 

stone galled me underneath the sack, and again when the 
poor patient Modestine, growing angry, pawed and 
stamped upon the road — I was recalled for a brief while 
to consciousness, and saw a star or two overhead, and the 
lace-like edge of the foliage against the sky. When I 
awoke for the third time (Wednesday, September 25th), 
the world was flooded with a blue light, the mother of the 
dawn. I saw the leaves labouring in the wind and the 
ribbon of the road ; and, on turning my head, there was 
Modestine tied to a beech, and standing half across the 
path in an attitude of inimitable patience. I closed my 
eyes again, and set to thinking over the experience of the 
night. I was surprised to find how easy and pleasant it 
had been, even in this tempestuous weather. The stone 
which annoyed me would not have been there, had I not 
been forced to camp blindfold in the opaque night ; and 
I had felt no other inconvenience, except when my feet 
encountered the lantern or the second volume of Peyrat's 
Pastors of the Desert among the mixed contents of my 
sleeping-bag ; nay more, I had felt not a touch of cold, 
and awakened with unusually lightsome and clear sen- 
sations. 

With that, I shook myself, got once more into my 
boots and gaiters, and, breaking up the rest of the bread 
for Modestine, strolled about to see in what part of the 
world I had awakened. Ulysses, left on Ithaca, and with 
a mind unsettled by the goddess, was not more pleasantly 
astray. I have been after an adventure all my life, a 
pure dispassionate adventure, such as befell early and 
heroic voyagers ; and thus to be found by morning in a 
random woodside nook in Gevaudan — not knowing 
north from south, as strange to my surroundings as the 



Upper Gevaudan 37 

first man upon the earth, an inland castaway — was to 
find a fraction of my day-dreams reahsed. I was on the 
skirts of a Httle wood of birch, sprinkled with a few 
beeches ; behind, it adjoined another wood of fir ; and in 
front, it broke up and went down in open order into a 
shallow and meadowy dale. All around there were bare 
hill-tops, some near, some far away, as the perspective 
closed or opened, but none apparently much higher than 
the rest. The wind huddled the trees. The golden 
specks of autumn in the birches tossed shiveringly. 
Overhead the sky was full of strings and shreds of vapour, 
flying, vanishing, reappearing, and turning about an axis 
like tumblers, as the wind hounded them through heaven. 
It was wild weather and famishing cold. I ate some 
chocolate, swallowed a mouthful of brandy, and smoked 
a cigarette before the cold should have time to disable 
my fingers. And by the time I had got all this done, and 
had made my pack and bound it on the pack-saddle, the 
day was tiptoe on the threshold of the east. We had 
not gone many steps along the lane, before the sun, still 
invisible to me, sent a glow of gold over some cloud 
mountains that lay ranged along the eastern sky. 

The wind had us on the stern, and hurried us bitingly 
forward. I buttoned myself into my coat, and walked 
on in a pleasant frame of mind with all men, when suddenly 
at a corner, there was Fouzilhic once more in front of me. 
Nor only that, but there was the old gentleman who had 
escorted me so far the night before, running out of his 
house at sight of me, with hands upraised in horror. 
"My poor boy!" he cried, "what does this mean?" 
I told him what had happened. He beat his old hands 
Jike clappers in a mill, to think how lightly he had let me 



38 Travels with a Donkey- 

go; but when he heard of the man of Fouzilhac, anger 
and depression seized upon his mind. 

''This time, at least," said he, ''there shall be no mis- 
take." 

And he limped along, for he was very rheumatic, for 
about half a mile, and until I was almost within sight of 
Cheylard, the destination I had hunted for so long. 



Cheylard and Luc 

Candidly, it seemed little worthy of all this searching. 
A few broken ends of village, with no particular street, 
but a succession of open places heaped with logs and 
fagots ; a couple of tilted crosses, a shrine to our Lady of 
all Graces on the summit of a little hill; and all this, 
upon a rattHng highland river, in the corner of a naked 
valley. What went ye out for to see? thought I to my- 
self. But the place had a life of its own. I found a 
board commemorating the liberahties of Cheylard for 
the past year, hung up, like a banner, in the diminutive 
and tottering church. In 1877, it appeared, the inhabit- 
ants subscribed forty-eight francs ten centimes for the 
^'Work of the Propagation of the Faith." Some of this, 
I could not help hoping, would be applied to my native 
land. Cheylard scrapes together halfpence for the 
darkened souls in Edinburgh; while Balquidder and 
Dunrossness bemoan the ignorance of Rome. Thus, to 
the high entertainment of the angels, do we pelt each 
other with evangelists, like school-boys bickering in the 
snow. 

The inn was again singularly unpretentious. The 
whole furniture of a not ill-to-do family was in the kitchen : 
the beds, the cradle, the clothes, the plate-rack, the meal- 
chest, and the photograph of the parish priest. There 
were five children, one of whom was set to its morning 
prayers at the stair-foot soon after my arrival, and a 

39 



40 Travels with a Donkey 

sixth would erelong be forthcoming. I was kindly re- 
ceived by these good folk. They were much interested in 
my misadventure. The wood in which I had slept be- 
longed to them ; the man of Fouzilhac they thought a 
monster of iniquity, and counselled me warmly to summon 
him at law — "because I might have died." The good 
wife was horror-stricken to see me drink over a pint of 
uncreamed milk. 

"You will do yourself an evil," she said. "Permit me 
to boil it for you." 

After I had begun the morning on this delightful 
liquor, she having an infinity of things to arrange, I was 
permitted, nay requested, to make a bowl of chocolate 
for myself. My boots and gaiters were hung up to dry, 
and, seeing me trying to write my journal on my knee, 
the eldest daughter let down a hinged table in the chimney- 
corner for my convenience. Here I wrote, drank my 
chocolate, and finally ate an omelette before I left. The 
table was thick with dust ; for, as they explained, it was 
not used except in winter weather. I had a clear look 
up the vent, through brown agglomerations of soot and 
blue vapour, to the sky ; and whenever a handful of twigs 
was thrown on to the fire, my legs were scorched by the 
blaze. 

The husband had begun life as a muleteer, and when I 
came t@ charge Modestine showed himself full of the 
prudence of his art. "You will have to change this pack- 
age," said he ; "it ought to be in two parts, and then you 
might have double the weight." 

I explained that I wanted no more weight ; and for no 
donkey hitherto created would I cut my sleeping-bag in 
two. 



upper Gevaudan 41 

"It fatigues her, however," said the inn-keeper; ''it 
fatigues her greatly on the march. Look." 

Alas, there were her two forelegs no better than raw 
beef on the inside, and blood was running from under her 
tail. They told me when I left, and I was ready to believe 
it, that before a few days I should come to love Modestine 
like a dog. Three days had passed, we had shared some 
misadventures, and my heart was still as cold as a potato 
towards my beast of burthen. She was pretty enough to 
look at ; but then she had given proof of dead stupidity, 
redeemed indeed by patience, but aggravated by flashes 
of sorry and ill-judged light-heartedness. And I own 
this new discovery seemed another point against her. 
What the devil was the good of a she-ass if she could 
not carry a sleeping-bag and a few necessaries? I saw 
the end of the fable rapidly approaching, when I should 
have to carry Modestine. /Esop was the man to know 
the world ! I assure you I set out with heavy thoughts 
upon my short day's march. 

It was not only heavy thoughts about Modestine that 
weighted me upon the way ; it was a leaden business alto- 
gether. For first, the wind blew so rudely that I had to 
hold on the pack with one hand from Cheylard to Luc 
and second, my road lay through one of the most beggarly 
countries in the world. It was like the worst of the 
Scotch Highlands, only worse ; cold, naked, and ignoble, 
scant of wood, scant of heather, scant of life. A road 
and some fences broke the unvarying waste, and the line 
of the road was marked by upright pillars, to serve in 
time of snow. 

Why any one should desire to visit either Luc or Chey- 
lard is more than my much-inventing spirit can suppose. 



42 Travels with a Donkey 

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I 
travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move ; 
to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to 
come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and find 
the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints. 
Alas, as we get up in life, and are more preoccupied with 
our affairs, even a holiday is a thing that must be worked 
for. To hold a pack upon a pack-saddle against a gale 
out of the freezing north is no high industry, but it is one 
that serves to occupy and compose the mind. And 
when the present is so exacting, who can annoy himself 
about the future? 

I came out at length above the Allier. A more un- 
sightly prospect at this season of the year it would be 
hard to fancy. Shelving hills rose round it on all sides, 
here dabbled w^th w^ood and fields, there rising to peaks 
alternately naked and hairy with pines. The colour 
throughout was black or ashen, and came to a point in 
the ruins of the castle of Luc, which pricked up impudently 
from below my feet, carrying on a pinnacle a tall white 
statue of our Lady, which, I heard with interest, weighed 
fifty quintals, and was to be dedicated on the 6th of 
October. Through this sorry landscape trickled the 
Allier and a tributary of nearly equal size, which came 
down to join it through a broad nude valley in Vivarais. 
The weather had somewhat lightened, and the clouds 
massed in squadron ; but the fierce wind still hunted them 
through heaven, and cast great ungainly splashes of 
shadow and sunlight over the scene. 

Luc itself was a straggling double file of houses wedged 
between hill and river. It had no beauty,, nor was there 
any notable feature, save the old castle overhead with its 



Upper Gevaudan 43 

fifty quintals of brand-new Madonna. But the inn was 
clean and large. The kitchen, with its two hox-beds hung 
with clean check curtains, with its wide stone chimney, 
its chimney-shelf four yards long and garnished with 
lanterns and religious statuettes, its array of chests and 
pair of ticking clocks, was the very model of what a kitchen 
ought to be ; a melodrama kitchen, suitable for bandits or 
noblemen in disguise. Nor was the scene disgraced by the 
landlady, a handsome, silent, dark old woman, clothed 
and hooded in black like a nun. Even the public bedroom 
had a character of its own, with the long deal tables and 
benches, where fifty might have dined, set out as for a 
harvest-home, and the three box-beds along the wall. 
In one of these, lying on straw and covered with a pair of 
table-napkins, did I do penance all night long in goose- 
flesh and chattering teeth, and sigh from time to time as 
I awakened for my sheepskin sack and the lee of some 
great wood. 



OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 



''I behold 
The House, the Brotherhood austere — 
And what am I, that I am here ? " 

— Matthew Arnold. 



OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 

Father Apollinarls 

Next morning (Thursday, 26th September) I took the 
road in a new order. The sack was no longer doubled, 
but hung at full length across the saddle, a green sausage 
six feet long with a tuft of blue wool hanging out of either 
end. It was more picturesque, it spared the donkey, and, 
as I began to see, it would insure stability, blow high, 
blow low. But it was not without a pang that I had so 
decided. For although I had purchased a new cord, and 
made all as fast as I was able, I was yet jealously uneasy 
lest the flaps should tumble out and scatter my effects 
along the line of march. 

My way lay up the bald valley of the river, along the 
march of Vivarais and Gevaudan. The hills of Gevaudan 
on the right were a little more naked, if anything, than 
those of Vivarais upon the left, and the former had a 
monopoly of a low dotty underwood that grew thickly in 
the gorges and died out in solitary burrs upon the shoulder 
and the summits. Black bricks of fir-wood were plastered 
here and there upon both sides, and here and there were 
cultivated fields. A railway ran beside the river; the 
only bit of railway in Gevaudan, although there are many 
proposals afoot and surveys being made, and even, as 
they tell me, a station standing ready-built in Mende. 
A year or two hence and this may be another world. 

47 



48 Travels with a Donkey 

The desert is beleaguered. Now may some Languedocian 
Wordsworth turn the sonnet into patois: ''Mountains 
and vales and floods, heard ye that whistle?" 

At a place called La Bastide I was directed to leave the 
river, and follow a road that mounted on the left among 
the hills of Vivarais, the modern Ardeche ; for I was now 
come within a little way of my strange destination, the 
Trappist monastery of our Lady of the Snows. The sun 
came out as I left the shelter of a pine-wood, and I beheld 
suddenly a fine wild landscape to the south. High rocky 
hills, as blue as sapphire, closed the view, and between 
these lay ridge upon ridge, heathery, craggy, the sun 
glittering on veins of rock, the underwood clambering in 
the hollows, as rude as God made them at the first. 
There was not a sign of man's hand in all the prospect; 
and indeed not a trace of his passage, save where genera- 
tion after generation had walked in twisted foot-paths, 
in and out among the beeches, and up and down upon 
the channelled slopes. The mists, which had hitherto 
beset me, were now broken into clouds, and fled swiftly 
and shone brightly in the sun. I drew a long breath. It 
was grateful to come, after so long, upon a scene of some 
attraction for the human heart. I own I like definite 
form in what my eyes are to rest upon ; and if landscapes 
were sold, like the sheets of characters of my boyhood, 
one penny plain and twopence coloured, I should go the 
length of twopence every day of my life. 

But if things had grown better to the south, it was 
still desolate and inclement near at hand. A spidery 
cross on every hill-top marked the neighbourhood of a 
religious house ; and a quarter of a mile beyond, the out- 
look southward opening out and growing bolder with 



Our Lady of the Snows 49 

every step, a white statue of the Virgin at the corner of a 
young plantation directed the traveller to our Lady of 
the Snows. Here, then, I struck leftward, and pursued 
my way, driving my secular donkey before me, and creak- 
ing in my secular boots and gaiters, towards the asylum 
of silence. 

I had not gone very far ere the wind brought to me 
the clanging of a bell, and somehow, I can scarce tell 
why, my heart sank within me at the sound. I have 
rarely approached anything with more unaffected terror 
than the monastery of our Lady of the Snows. This it is 
to have had a Protestant education. And suddenly, on 
turning a corner, fear took hold on me from head to foot 
— slavish superstitious fear ; and though I did not stop 
in my advance, yet I went on slowly, like a man who 
should have passed a bourne unnoticed, and strayed into 
the country of the dead. For there upon the narrow 
new-made road, between the stripling pines, was a mediaeval 
friar, fighting with a barrowful of turfs. Every Sunday of 
my childhood I used to study the Hermits of Marco 
Sadeler — enchanting prints, full of wood and field and 
mediaeval landscapes, as large as a county, for the imagi- 
nation to go a-travelling in ; and here, sure enough, was 
one of Marco Sadeler's heroes. He was robed in white 
like any spectre, and the hood falling back, in the instancy 
of his contention with the barrow, disclosed a pate as bald 
and yellow as a skull. He might have been buried any 
time these thousand years, and all the lively parts of him 
resolved into earth and broken up with the farmer's harrow. 

I was troubled besides in my mind as to etiquette. 
Durst I address a person who was under a vow of silence ? 
Clearly not. But drawing near, I doffed my cap to him 



50 Travels with a Donkey 

with a far-away superstitious reverence; He nodded 
back, and cheerfully addressed me. Was I going to the 
monastery? Who was I? An EngUshman? Ah, an 
Irishman, then? 

"No," I said, ''a Scotsman." 

A Scotsman ? Ah, he had never seen a Scotsman before . 
And he looked me all over, his good, honest, brawny 
countenance shining with interest, as a boy might look 
upon a lion or an alligator. From him I learned with 
disgust that I could not be received at our Lady of the 
Snows; I might get a meal, perhaps, but that was all. 
And then, as our talk ran on, and it turned out that I 
was not a pedlar, but a literary man, who drew landscapes 
and was going to write a book, he changed his manner of 
thinking as to my reception (for I fear they respect per- 
sons even in a Trappist monastery), and told me I must 
be sure to ask for the Father Prior, and state my case 
to him in full. On second thoughts he determined to go 
down with me himself; he thought he could manage for 
me better. Might he say that I was a geographer ? 

No ; I thought, in the interests of truth, he positively 
might not. 

"Very well, then" (with disappointment), "an author." 

It appeared he had been in a seminary with six young 
Irishmen, all priests long since, who had received news- 
papers and kept him informed of the state of ecclesiastical 
affairs in England. And he asked me eagerly after Dr. 
Pusey, for whose conversion the good man had continued 
ever since to pray night and morning. 

"I thought he was very near the truth," he said; 
"and he will reach it yet; there is so much virtue in 
prayer." 



Our Lady of the Snows 51 

He must be a stiff ungodly Protestant who can take 
anything but pleasure in this kind and hopeful story. 
While he was thus near the subject, the good father asked 
me if I were a Christian ; and when he found I was not, 
or not after his way, he glossed it over with great good- 
will. 

The road which we were following, and which this stal- 
wart father had made with his own two hands within 
the space of a year, came to a corner, and showed us some 
white buildings a little further on beyond the wood. A-t 
the same time, the bell once more sounded abroad. We 
were hard upon the monastery. Father ApoUinaris (for 
that was my companion's name) stopped me. 

"I must not speak to you down there," he said. "Ask 
for the Brother Porter, and all will be well. But try to 
see me as you go out again through the wood, where I 
may speak to you. I am charmed to have made your 
acquaintance." 

And then suddenly raising his arms, flapping his fingers, 
and crying out twice, "I must not speak, I must not 
speak!" he ran away in front of me, and disappeared 
into the monastery-door. 

I own this somewhat ghastly eccentricity went a good 
way to revive my terrors. But where one was so good 
and simple, why should not all be alike? I took heart 
of grace, and went forward to the gate as fast as Mo- 
destine, who seemed to have a disaffection for monas- 
teries, would permit. It was the first door, in my ac- 
quaintance of her, which she had not shown in indecent 
haste to enter. I summoned the place in form, though 
with a quaking heart. Father Michael, the Father Hos- 
pitaller, and a pair of brown-robed brothers came to the 



52 Travels with a Donkey 

gate and spoke with me awhile. I think my sack was the 
great attraction; it had already beguiled the heart of 
poor Apollinaris, who had charged me on my life to show 
it to the Father Prior. But whether it was my address, 
or the sack, or the idea speedily published among that 
part of the brotherhood who attend on strangers that I 
was not a pedlar after all, I found no difficulty as to my 
reception. Modestine was led away by a layman to the 
stables, and I and my pack were received into our Lady 
of the Snows. 



The Monks 

Father Michael, a pleasant, fresh-faced, smiling man 
perhaps of thirty-five, took me to the pantry, and gave 
me a glass of liqueur to stay me until dinner. We had 
some talk, or rather I should say he listened to my prattle 
indulgently enough, but with an abstracted air, like a 
spirit with a thing of clay. And truly when I remember 
that I descanted principally on my appetite, and that it 
must have been by that time more than eighteen hours 
since Father Michael had so much as broken bread, I 
can well understand that he would find an earthly savour 
in my conversation. But his manner, though superior, 
was exquisitely gracious; and I find I have a lurking 
curiosity as to Father Michael's past. 

The whet administered, I was left alone for a little in 
the monastery garden. This is no more than the main 
court, laid out in sandy paths and beds of party-coloured 
dahlias, and with a fountain and a black statue of the 
Virgin in the centre. The buildings stand around it 
four-square, bleak, as yet unseasoned by the years and 
weather, and with no other features than a belfry and a 
pair of slated gables. Brothers in white, brothers in 
brown, passed silently along the sanded alleys ; and when 
I first came out, three hooded monks were kneeling on the 
terrace at their prayers. A naked hill commands the 
monastery upon one side, and the wood commands it on 
the other. It Ues exposed to wind; the snow falls off 

53 



54 Travels with a Donkey 

and on from October to May, and sometimes lies six 
weeks on end ; but if they stood in Eden, with a dimate 
like heaven's, the buildings themselves would offer the 
same wintry and cheerless aspect ; and for my part, on 
this wild September day, before I was called to dinner, I 
felt chilly in and out. 

When I had eaten well and heartily. Brother Ambrose, 
a hearty conversable Frenchman (for all those who wait 
on strangers have the liberty to speak), led me to a little 
room in that part of the building which is set apart for 
MM. les retraitants. It was clean and whitewashed, and 
furnished with strict necessaries, a crucifix, a bust of the 
late Pope, the Imitation in French, a book of religious 
meditations, and the Lije of Elizabeth Seton, evangelist, it 
would appear, of North America and of New England in 
particular. As far as my experience goes, there is a fair 
field for some more evangelisation in these quarters ; but 
think of Cotton Mather ! I should like to give him a read- 
ing of this little work in heaven, where I hope he dwells ; 
but perhaps he knows all that already, and much more; 
and perhaps he and Mrs. Seton are the dearest friends, 
and gladly unite their voices in the everlasting psalm. 
Over the table, to conclude the inventory of the room, 
hung a set of regulations for MM. les retraitants: what 
services they should attend, when they were to tell their 
beads or meditate, and when they were to rise and go to 
rest. At the foot was a notable N. B. : "Le temps libre 
est employe a Vexamen de conscience, a la confession, a faire 
de bonnes resolutions,^' etc. To make good resolutions, 
indeed ! You might talk as fruitfully of making the hair 
grow on your head. 

I had scarce explored my niche when Brother Ambrose 



Our Lady of the Snows 



55 



returned. An English boarder, it appeared, would like 
to speak with me. I professed my willingness, and the 
friar ushered in a fresh, young little Irishman of fifty, a 
deacon of the Church, arrayed in strict canonicals, and 
wearing on his head what, in default of knowledge, I can 
only call the ecclesiastical shako. He had lived seven 
years in retreat at a convent of nuns in Belgium, and now 




Mount St. Michael at Le Puy 



five at our Lady of the Snows ; he never saw an English 
newspaper; he spoke French imperfectly, and had he 
spoken it like a native, there was not much chance of 
conversation where he dwelt. With this, he was a man 
eminently sociable, greedy of news, and simple-minded 
like a child. If I was pleased to have a guide about the 
monastery, he was no less delighted to see an Enghsh 
face and hear an English tongue. 



56 Travels with a Donkey 

He showed me his own room, where he passed his time 
among breviaries, Hebrew bibles, and the Waverley novels. 
Thence he led me to the cloisters, into the chapter-house, 
through the vestry, where the brothers' gowns and broad 
straw hats were hanging up, each with his religious name 
upon a board, — names full of legendary suavity and 
interest, such as Basil, Hilarion, Raphael, or Pacifique; 
into the library, where were all the works of Veuillot and 
Chateaubriand, and the Odes et Ballades, if you please, 
and even Moliere, to say nothing of innumerable fathers 
and a great variety of local and general historians. Thence 
my good Irishman took me round the workshops, where 
brothers bake bread, and make cart-wheels, and take 
photographs; where one superintends a collection of 
curiosities, and another a gallery of rabbits. For in a 
Trappist monastery each monk has an occupation of his 
own choice, apart from his rehgious duties and the general 
labours of the house. Each must sing in the choir, if he 
has a voice and ear, and join in the haymaking if he has 
a hand to stir ; but in his private hours, although he must 
be occupied, he may be occupied on what he likes. Thus 
I was told that one brother was engaged with literature ; 
while Father ApolUnaris busies himself in making roads, 
and the Abbot employs himself in binding books. It is 
not so long since this Abbot was consecrated, by the 
way ; and on that occasion, by a special grace, his mother 
was permitted to enter the chapel and witness the cere- 
mony of consecration. A proud day for her to have a son 
a mitred abbot ; it makes you glad to think they let her in. 

In all these journeyings to and fro, many silent fathers 
and brethren fell in our way. Usually they paid no more 
regard to our passage than if we had been a cloud ; but 



Our Lady of the Snows 57 

sometimes the good deacon had a permission to ask of 
them, and it was granted by a pecuhar movement of the 
hands, almost like that of a dog's paws in swimming, or 
refused by the usual negative signs, and in either case 
with lowered eyelids and a certain air of contrition, as of 
a man who was steering very close to evil. 

The monks, by special grace of their Abbot, were still 
taking two meals a day ; but it was already time for their 
grand fast, which begins somewhere in September and 
lasts till Easter, and during which they eat but once in 
the twenty-four hours, and that at two in the afternoon, 
twelve hours after they have begun the toil and vigil of 
the day. Their meals are scanty, but even of these they 
eat sparingly ; and though each is allowed a small carafe 
of wine, many refrain from this indulgence. Without 
doubt, the most of mankind grossly overeat themselves ; 
our meals serve not only for support, but as a hearty and 
natural diversion from the labour of life. Although excess 
may be hurtful, I should have thought this Trappist regi- 
men defective. And I am astonished, as I look back, at 
the freshness of face and cheerfulness of manner of all 
whom I beheld. A happier nor a healthier company I 
should scarce suppose that I have ever seen. As a matter 
of fact, on this bleak upland, and with the incessant 
occupation of the monks, life is of an uncertain tenure, 
and death no infrequent visitor, at our Lady of the Snows. 
This, at least, was what was told me. But if they die 
easily, they must live healthily in the meantime, for they 
seemed all firm of flesh and high in colour ; and the only 
morbid sign that I could observe, an unusual brilliancy 
of eye, was one that served rather to increase the general 
impression of vivacity and strength. 



58 Travels with a Donkey 

Those with whom I spoke were singularly sweet- 
tempered, with what I can only call a holy cheerfulness 
in air and conversation. There is a note, in the direction 
to visitors, telling them not to be offended at the curt 
speech of those who wait upon them, since it is proper 
to monks to speak little. The note might have been 
spared ; to a man the hospitallers were all brimming with 
innocent talk, and, in my experience of the monastery, it 
was easier to begin than to break off a conversation. 
With the exception of Father Michael, who was a man of 
the world, they showed themselves full of kind and 
healthy interest in all sorts of subjects — in politics, in 
voyages, in my sleeping-sack — and not without a certain 
pleasure in the sound of their own voices. 

As for those who are restricted to silence, I can only 
wonder how they bear their solemn and cheerless isola- 
tion. And yet, apart from any view of mortification, I 
can see a certain policy, not only in the exclusion of women, 
but in this vow of silence. I have had some experience of 
lay phalansteries, of an artistic, not to say a bacchanalian, 
character; and seen more than one association easily 
formed, and yet more easily dispersed. With a Cistercian 
rule, perhaps they might have lasted longer. In the 
neighbourhood of women it is but a touch-and-go associa- 
tion that can be formed among defenceless men; the 
stronger electricity is sure to triumph; the dreams of 
boyhood, the schemes of youth, are abandoned after an 
interview of ten minutes, and the arts and sciences, and 
professional male jollity, deserted at once for two sweet 
eyes and a caressing accent. And next after this, the 
tongue is the great divider. 

I am almost ashamed to pursue this worldly criticism 



Our Lady of the Snows 59 

of a religious rule ; but there is yet another point in which 
the Trappist order appeals to me as a model of wisdom. 
By two in the morning the clapper goes upon the bell, 
and so on, hour by hour, and sometimes quarter by 
quarter, till eight, the hour of rest ; so infinitesimally is 
the day divided among different occupations. The man 
who keeps rabbits, for example, hurries from his hutches 
to the chapel, the chapter-room, or the refectory, all day 
long : every hour he has an office to sing, a duty to per- 
form; from two, when he rises in the dark, till eight, 
when he returns to receive the comfortable gift of sleep, 
he is upon his feet and occupied with manifold and chang- 
ing business. I know many persons, worth several thou- 
sands in the year, who are not 30 fortunate in the dis- 
posal of their lives. Into how many -houses would not 
the note of the monastery-bell, dividing the day into 
manageable portions, bring peace of mind and healthful 
activity of body? We speak of hardships, but the true 
hardship is to be a dull fool, and permitted to mismanage 
life in our own dull and foolish manner. 

From this point of view, we may perhaps better under- 
stand the monk's existence. A long novitiate, and every 
proof of constancy of mind and strength of body is re- 
quired before admission to the order; but I could not 
find that many 'were discouraged. In the photographer's 
studio, which figures so strangely among the outbuildings, 
my eye was attracted by the portrait of a young fellow 
in the uniform of a private of foot. This was one of the 
novices, who came of the age for service, and marched and 
drilled and mounted guard for the proper time among the 
garrison of Algiers. Here was a man who had surely 
seen both sides of life before ' deciding ; yet as soon as 



6o Travels with a Donkey 

he was set free from service he returned to finish his 
novitiate. 

This austere rule entitles a man to heaven as by right. 
When the Trappist sickens, he quits not his habit ; he lies 
in the bed of death as he has prayed and laboured in his 
frugal and silent existence ; and when the Liberator comes, 
at the very moment, even before they have carried him 
in his robe to lie his little last in the chapel among con- 
tinual chantings, joy-bells break forth, as if for a mar- 
riage, from the slated belfry, and proclaim throughout 
the neighbourhood that another soul has gone to God. 

At night, under the conduct of my kind Irishman, I 
took my place in the gallery to hear compline and Salve 
Regina, with which the Cistercians bring every day to a 
conclusion. There were none of those circumstances 
which strike the Protestant as childish or as tawdry in 
the public ofhces of Rome. A stern simplicity, heightened 
by the romance of the surroundings, spoke directly to the 
heart. I recall the whitewashed chapel, the hooded figures 
in the choir, the lights alternately occluded and revealed, 
the strong manly singing, the silence that ensued, the sight 
of cowled heads bowed in prayer, and then the clear 
trenchant beating of the bell, breaking in to show that 
the' last office was over and the hour of sleep had come; 
and when I remember, I am not surprised that I made 
my escape into the court with somewhat whirling fancies, 
and stood like a man bewildered in the windy starry night. 

But I was weary ; and when I had quieted my spirits 
with Elizabeth Seton's memoirs — a dull work — the cold 
and the raving of the wind among the pines — for my 
room was on that side of the monastery which adjoins 
the woods — disposed me readily to slumber. I was 



Our Lady of the Snows 6i 

wakened at black midnight, as it seemed, though it was 
really two in the morning, by the first stroke upon the 
bell. All the brothers were then hurrying to the chapel ; 
the dead in life, at this untimely hour, were already begin- 
ning the uncomforted labours of their day. The dead in 
life — there was a chill reflection. And the words of a 
French song came back into my memory, telling of the 
best of our mixed existence : 

"Que t'as de' belles filles, 

Girofle ! 

Girofla ! 
Que t'as de belles filles, 
V Amour les compterar' 

And I blessed God that I was free to wander, free to 
hope, and free to love. 



The Boarders 

But there was another side to my residence at our 
Lady of the Snows. At this late season there were not 
many boarders ; and yet I was not alone in the public 
part of the monastery. This itself is hard by the gate, 
with a small dining-room on the ground floor, and a whole 
corridor of cells similar to mine up-stairs. I have stupidly 
forgotten the board for a regular retraitant; but it was 
somewhere between three and five francs a day, and I 
think most probably the first. Chance visitors like my- 
self might give what they chose as a free-will offering, 
but nothing was demanded. I may mention that when 
I was going away. Father Michael refused twenty francs 
as excessive. I explained the reasoning which led me to 
offer him so much ; but even then, from a curious point of 
honour, he would not accept it with his own hand. "I 
have no right to refuse for the monastery," he explained, 
''but I should prefer if you would give it to one of the 
brothers." 

I had dined alone, because I arrived late ; but at supper 
I found two other guests. One was a country parish 
priest, who had walked over that morning from the seat 
of his cure near Mende to enjoy four days of solitude and 
prayer. He was a grenadier in person, with the hale colour 
and circular wrinkles of a peasant ; and as he complained 
much of how he had been impeded by his skirts upon the 
march, I have a vivid fancy portrait of him, striding along, 

62 



Our Lady of the Snows 63 

upright, big-boned, with kilted cassock, through the bleak 
hills of Gevaudan. The other was a short, grizzling, 
thick-set man, from forty-five to fifty, dressed in tweed 
with a knitted spencer, and the red ribbon of a decoration 
in his buttonhole. This last was a hard person to classify. 
He was an old soldier, who had seen service and risen to 
the rank of commandant; and he retained some of the 
brisk decisive manners of the camp. On the other hand, 
as soon as his resignation was accepted, he had come to 
our Lady of the Snows as a boarder, and after a brief 
experience of its ways, had decided to remain as a novice. 
Already the new life was beginning to modify his appear- 
ance; already he had acquired somewhat of the quiet 
and smiling air of the brethren ; and he was as yet neither 
an officer nor a Trappist, but partook of the character of 
each. And certainly here was a man in an interesting 
nick of life. Out of the noise of cannon and trumpets, 
he was in the act of passing into this still country border- 
ing on the grave, where men sleep nightly in their grave- 
clothes, and, like phantoms, communicate by signs. 

At supper we talked politics. I make it my business, 
when I am in France, to preach political good-will and 
moderation, and to dwell on the example of Poland, much 
as some alarmists in England dwell on the example of 
Carthage. The priest and the Commandant assured me 
of their sympathy with all I said, and made a heavy sigh- 
ing over the bitterness of contemporary feeling. 

"Why, you cannot say anything to a man with which 
he does not absolutely agree," said I, ''but he flies up at 
you in a temper." 

They both declared that such a state of things was 
antichristian. 



64 Travels with a Donkey 

While we were thus agreeing, what should my tongue 
stumble upon but a word in praise of Gambetta's modera- 
tion. The old soldier's countenance was instantly suffused 
with blood ; with' the palms of his hands he beat the table 
like a naughty child. 

^'Comment, monsieur?'' he shouted. ''Comment? 
Gambetta moderate? Will you dare to justify these 
words?" 

But the priest had not forgotten the tenor of our talk. 
And suddenly, in the height of his fury, the old soldier 
found a warning look directed on his face ; the absurdity 
of his behaviour was brought home to him in a flash; 
and the storm came to an abrupt end, without another 
word. 

It was only in the morning, over our coffee (Friday, 
September 27 th), that this couple found out I was a heretic. 
I suppose I had misled them by some admiring expressions 
as to the monastic life around us ; and it was only by a 
point-blank question that the truth came out. I had 
been tolerantly used, both by simple Father Apollinaris 
and astute Father Michael; and the good Irish deacon, 
when he heard of my religious weakness, had only patted 
me upon the shoulder and said, "You must be a Catholic 
and come to heaven." But I was now among a different 
sect of orthodox. These two men were bitter and up- 
right and narrow, like the worst of Scotsmen, and indeed, 
upon my heart, I fancy they were worse. The priest 
snorted aloud like a battle-horse. 

" Et vous pretendez mourir dans cette espece de croyance?'^ 
he demanded ; and there is no type used by mortal printers 
large enough to qualify his accent. 

I humbly indicated that I had no design of changing. 



Our Lady of the Snows 6$ 

But he could not away with such a monstrous attitude. 
''No, no," he cried ; ''you must change. You have come 
here, God has led you here, and you must embrace the 
opportunity." 

I made a slip in policy ; I appealed to the family affec- 
tions, though I was speaking to a priest and a soldier, 
two classes of men circumstantially divorced from the 
kind and homely ties of life. 

"Your father and mother?" cried the priest. "Very 
well ; you will convert them in their turn when you go 
home." 

I think I see my father's face ! I would rather tackle 
the Gaetulian lion in his den than embark on such an 
enterprise against the family theologian. 

But now the hunt was up; priest and soldier were in 
full cry for my conversion ; and the Work of the Propa- 
gation of the Faith, for which the. people of Cheylard sub- 
scribed forty-eight francs ten centimes during 1877, was 
being gallantly pursued against myself. It was an odd 
but most effective proselytising. They never sought to 
convince me in argument, where I might have attempted 
some defence; but took it for granted that I was both 
ashamed and terrified at my position, and urged me solely 
on the point of time. Now, they said, when God had led 
me to our Lady of the Snows, now was the appointed 
hour. 

"Do not be withheld by false shame," observed the 
priest, for my encouragement. 

For one who feels very similarly to all sects of religion, 
and who has never been able, even for a moment, to weigh 
seriously the merit of this or that creed on the eternal 
side of things, however much he may see to praise or 



66 Travels with a Donkey 

blame upon the secular and temporal side, the situation 
thus created was both unfair and painful. I committed 
my second fault in tact, and tried to plead that it was all 
the same thing in the end, and we were all drawing near 
by different sides to the same kind and undiscriminating 
Friend and Father. That, as it seems to lay-spirits, 
would be the only gospel worthy of the name. But dif- 
ferent men think differently ; and this revolutionary aspi- 
ration brought down the priest with all the terrors of the 
law. He launched into harrowing details of hell. The 
damned, he said — on the authority of a little book which 
he had read not a week before, and which, to add con- 
viction to conviction, he had fully intended to bring along 
with him in his pocket — were to occupy the same atti- 
tude through all eternity in the midst of dismal tortures. 
And as he thus expatiated, he grew in nobility of aspect 
with his enthusiasm. 

As a result the pair concluded that I should seek out 
the Prior, since the Abbot was from home, and lay my 
case immediately before him. 

^'C'est mon conseil comme ancien militaire,^' observed 
the Commandant ; ^'et celui de monsieur comme pretre.^' 

^^Ouiy' added the cure, sententiously nodding; ^^ comme 
ancien militaire — et comme pretre.^' 

At this moment, whilst I was somewhat embarrassed 
how to answer, in came one of the monks, a little brown 
fellow, as lively as a grig, and with an Italian accent, who 
threw himself at once into the contention, but in a milder 
and more persuasive vein, as befitted one of these pleasant 
brethren. Look at him, he said. The rule was very 
hard; he would have dearly liked to stay in his own 
country, Italy — it was well known how beautiful it was, 



Our Lady of the Snows 67 

the beautiful Italy ; but then there were no Trappists in 
Italy ; and he had a soul to save ; and here he was. 

I am afraid I must be at bottom, what a cheerful 
Indian critic has dubbed me, "a f addling hedonist" ; for 
this description of the brother's motives gave me some- 
what of a shock. I should have preferred to think he 
had chosen the life for its own sake, and not for ulterior 
purposes; and this shows how profoundly I was out of 
sympathy with these good Trappists, even when I was 
doing my best to sympathise. But to the cure the argu- 
ment seemed decisive. 

"Hear that !" he cried. ''And I have seen a marquis 
here, a marquis, a marquis" — he repeated the holy word 
three times over — "and other persons high in society; 
and generals. And here, at your side, is this gentleman, 
who has been so many years in armies — decorated, an old 
warrior. And here he is, ready to dedicate himself to God." 

I was by this time so thoroughly embarrassed that I 
pleaded cold feet, and made my escape from the apart- 
ment. It was a furious windy morning, with a sky much 
cleared, and long and potent intervals of sunshine; and 
I wandered until dinner in the wild country towards the 
east, sorely staggered and beaten upon by the gale, but 
rewarded with some striking views. 

At dinner the Work of the Propagation of the Faith 
was recommenced, and on this occasion still more dis- 
tastefully to me. The priest asked me many questions 
as to the contemptible faith of my fathers, and received 
my rephes with a kind of ecclesiastical titter. 

"Your sect," he said once; "for I think you will ad- 
mit it would be doing it too much honour to call it a 
religion." 



68 Travels with a Donkey 

"As you please, monsieur," said I. "La parole est a 
vous." 

At length I grew annoyed beyond endurance; and 
although he was on his own ground, and, what is more 
to the purpose, an old man, and so holding a claim upon 
my toleration, I could not avoid a protest against this 
uncivil usage. He was sadly discountenanced. 

"I assure you," he said, "I have no inclination to laugh 
in my heart. I have no other feeling but interest in your 
soul." 

And there ended my conversion. Honest man ! He 
was no dangerous deceiver ; but a country parson, full 
of zeal and faith. Long may he tread Gevaudan with his 
kilted skirts — a man strong to walk and strong to com- 
fort his parishioners in death ! I dare say he would beat 
bravely through a snow-storm where his duty called 
him ; and it is not always the most faithful believer who 
makes the cunningest apostle. 



UPPER GfiVAUDAN 

{continued) 



' The bed was made, the room was fit. 
By punctual eve the stars were lit; 
The air was sweet, the water ran; 
No need was there for maid or man. 
When we put up, my ass and I, 
At God's green caravanserai." 

— Old Play. 



Across the Goulet 

The wind fell during dinner, and the sky remained 
clear; so it was under better auspices that I loaded 
Modestine before the monastery-gate. My Irish friend 
accompanied me so far on the way. As we came through 
the wood, there was Pere Apollinaire hauling his barrow ; 
and he too quitted his labours to go with me for perhaps 
a hundred yards, holding my hand between both of his 
in front of him. I parted first from one and then from 
the other with unfeigned regret, but yet with the glee 
of the traveller who shakes off the dust of one stage before 
hurrying forth upon another. Then Modestine and I 
mounted the course of the Allier, which here led us back 
into Gevaudan towards its sources in the forest of Mer- 
coire. It was but an inconsiderable burn before we left 
its guidance. Thence, over a hill, our way lay through a 
naked plateau, until we reached Chasserades at sundown. 

The company in the inn-kitchen that night were all 
men employed in survey for one of the projected railways. 
They were intelligent and conversable, and we decided 
the future of France over hot wine, until the state of the 
clock frightened us to rest. There were four beds in the 
little up-stairs room ; and we slept six. But I had a bed 
to myself, and persuaded them to leave the window open. 

^^He, bourgeois; il est cinq heures T' was the cry that 
wakened me in the morning (Saturday, September 28th). 
The room was full of a transparent darkness, which dimly 

71 



72 Travels with a Donkey 

showed me the other three beds and the five different 
nightcaps on the pillows. But out of the window the 
dawn was growing ruddy in a long belt over the hill-tops 
and day was about to flood the plateau. The hour was 
inspiring ; and there seemed a promise of calm weather, 
which was perfectly fulfilled. I was soon under way 
with Modestine. The road lay for aw^hile over the 
plateau, and then descended through a precipitous village 
into the valley of the Chassezac. This stream ran among 
green meadow^s, w^ell hidden from the world by its steep 
banks ; the broom was in flower, and here and there was 
a hamlet sending up its smoke. 

At last the path crossed the Chassezac upon a bridge, 
and, forsaking this deep hollow, set itself to cross the 
mountain of La Goulet. It wound up through Lestampes 
by upland fields and woods of beech and birch, and with 
every corner brought me into an acquaintance with some 
new interest. Even in the gully of the Chassezac my ear 
had been struck by a noise like that of a great bass bell 
ringing at the distance of many miles ; but this, as I con- 
tinued to mount and draw^ nearer to it, seemed to change 
in character, and I found at length that it came from 
some one leading flocks afield to the note of a rural horn. 
The narrow street of Lestampes stood full of sheep, from 
wall to wall — black sheep and white, bleating like the 
birds in spring, and each one accompanying himself upon 
the sheep-bell round his neck. It made a pathetic con- 
cert, all in treble. A little higher, and I passed a pair of 
men in a tree with pruning-hooks, and one of them was 
singing the music of a hourree. Still further, and when I 
was already threading the birches, the crowing of cocks 
came cheerfully up to my ears, and along with that the 



Upper Gevaudan 73 

voice of a flute discoursing a deliberate and plaintive air 
from one of the upland villages. I pictured to myself 
some grizzled, apple-cheeked, country schoolmaster flut- 
ing in his bit of a garden in the clear autumn sunshine. 
All these beautiful and interesting sounds filled my heart 
with an unwonted expectation ; and it appeared to me 
that, once past this range which I was mounting, I should 
descend into the garden of the world. Nor was I deceived, 
for I was now done with rains and winds and a bleak 
country. The first part of my journey ended here ; and 
this was like an induction of sweet sounds into the other 
and more beautiful. 

There are other degrees of feyness, as of punishment, 
besides the capital ; and I was now led by my good spirits 
into an adventure which I relate in the interest of future 
donkey-drivers. The road zigzagged so widely on the 
hillside that I chose a short cut by map and compass, 
and struck through the dwarf woods to catch the road 
again upon a higher level. It was my one serious conflict 
with Modestine. She would none of my short cut ; she 
turned in my face, she backed, she reared ; she, whom I 
had hitherto imagined to be dumb, actually brayed with 
a loud hoarse flourish, like a cock crowing for the dawn. 
I plied the goad with one hand ; with the other, so steep 
was the ascent, I had to hold on the pack-saddle. Half-a- 
dozen times she was nearly over backwards on the top 
of me ; half-a-dozen times, from sheer weariness of spirit, 
I was nearly giving it up, and leading her down again to 
follow the road. But I took the thing as a wager, and 
fought it through. I was surprised, as I went on my 
way again, by what appeared to be chiU rain-drops falling 
on my hand, and more than once looked up in wonder 



74 Travels with a Donkey 

at the cloudless sky. But it was only sweat which came 
dropping from my brow. 

Over the summit of the Goulet there was no marked 
road — only upright stones posted from space to space 
to guide the drovers. The turf underfoot was springy 
and well scented. I had no company but a lark or two, 
and met but one bullock-cart between Lestampes and 
Bleymard. In front of me I saw a shallow valley, and 
beyond that the range of the Lozere, sparsely wooded 
and well enough modelled in the flanks, but straight and 
dull in outline. There was scarce a sign of culture; 
only about Bleymard, the white highroad from Villefort 
to Mende traversed a range of meadows, set with spiry 
poplars, and sounding from side to side with the bells of 
flocks and herds. 



A Night Among the Pines 

From Bleymard after dinner, although it was already 
late, I set out to scale a portion of the Lozere. An ill- 
marked stony drove-road guided me forward ; and I met 
nearly half-a-dozen bullock-carts descending from the 
woods, each laden with a whole pine-tree for the winter's 
firing. At the top of the woods, which do not climb 
very high upon this cold ridge, I struck leftward by a 
path among the pines, until I hit on a dell of green turf, 
where a streamlet made a little spout over some stones to 
serve me for a water-tap. ''In a more sacred or se- 
questered bower — nor nymph nor faunus haunted." 
The trees were not old, but they grew thickly round the 
glade : there was no outlook, except northeastward upon 
distant hill-tops, or straight upward to the sky ; and the 
encampment felt secure and private like a room. By 
the time I had made my arrangements and fed Modes- 
tine, the day was already beginning to decline. I buckled 
myself to the knees into my sack and made a hearty 
meal ; and as soon as the sun went down, I pulled my 
cap over my eyes and fell asleep. 

Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof ; but 
in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews 
and perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in 
the face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal 
death to people choked between walls and curtains, is 
only a light and living slumber to the man who sleeps 

75 



76 Travels with a Donkey 

afield. All night long he can hear Nature breathing 
deeply and freely; even as she takes her rest she turns 
and smiles ; and there is one stirring hour unknown to 
those who dwell in houses, when a wakeful influence goes 
abroad over the sleeping hemisphere, and all the outdoor 
world are on their feet. It is then that the cock first 
crows, not this time to announce the dawn, but like a 
cheerful watchman speeding the course of night. Cattle 
awake on the meadows ; sheep break their fast on dewy 
hillsides, and change to a new lair among the ferns ; and 
houseless men, who have lain down with the fowls, open 
their dim eyes and behold the beauty of the night. 

At what inaudible summons, at what gentle touch of 
Nature, are all these sleepers thus recalled in the same 
hour to life? Do the stars rain down an influence, or 
do we share some thrill of mother earth below our resting 
bodies? Even shepherds and old countryfolk, who are 
the deepest read in these arcana, have not a guess as to 
the means or purpose of this nightly resurrection. To- 
wards two in the morning they declare the thing takes 
place ; and neither know nor inquire further. And at 
least it is a pleasant incident. We are disturbed in our 
slumber only, like the luxurious Montaigne, "that we 
may the better and more sensibly relish it." We have a 
moment to look upon the stars, and there is a special 
pleasure for some minds in the reflection that we share 
the impulse with all outdoor creatures in our neighbour- 
hood, that we have escaped out of the Bastille of civilisa- 
tion, and are becorrie, for the time being, a mere kindly 
animal and a sheep of Nature's flock. 

When that hour came to me among the pines, I wakened 
thirsty. My tin w^as standing by me half full of water. 



upper Gevaudan 77 

I emptied it at a draught ; and feeling broad awake after 
this internal cold aspersion, sat upright to make a cigarette. 



The Refectory at the Abbey of Mount St. Michael, Le Puy 

The stars were clear, coloured, and jewel-like, but not 
frosty. A faint silvery vapour stood for the Milky Way. 



78 Travels with a Donkey 

All around me the black fir-points stood upright and stock- 
still. By the whiteness of the pack-saddle, I could see 
Modestine walking round and round at the length of her 
tether ; I could hear her steadily munching at the sward ; 
but there was not another sound, save the indescribable 
quiet talk of the runnel over the stones. I lay lazily 
smoking and studying the colour of the sky, as we call 
the void of space, from where it showed a reddish grey 
behind the pines to where it showed a glossy blue-black 
between the stars. As if to be more like a pedlar, I 
wear a silver ring. This I could see faintly shining as I 
raised or lowered the cigarette; and at each whiff the 
inside of my hand was illuminated, and became for a 
second the highest light in the landscape. 

A faint wind, more like a moving coolness than a stream 
of air, passed down the glade from time to time ; so that 
even in my great chamber the air was being renewed all 
night long. I thought with horror of the inn at Chas- 
serades and the congregated nightcaps; with horror of 
the nocturnal prowesses of clerks and students, of hot 
theatres and pass-keys and close rooms. I have not 
often enjoyed a more serene possession of myself, nor felt 
more independent of material aids. The outer world, 
from which we cower into our houses, seemed after all a 
gentle habitable place; and night after night a man's 
bed, it seemed, was laid and waiting for him in the fields, 
where God keeps an open house. I thought I had re- 
discovered one of those truths which are revealed to 
savages and hid from political economists : at the least, 
I had discovered a new pleasure for myself. And yet even 
while I was exulting in my solitude I became aware of a 
strange lack. I wished a companion to lie near me in 



Upper Gevaudan 79 

the starlight, silent and not moving, but ever within 
touch. For there is a fellowship more quiet even than 
solitude, and which, rightly understood, is soUtude made 
perfect. And to live out of doors with the woman a 
man loves is of all lives the most complete and free. 

As I thus lay, between content and longing, a faint 
noise stole towards me through the pines. I thought, 
at first, it w^as the crowing of cocks or the barking of 
dogs at some very distant farm ; but steadily and gradually 
it took articulate shape in my ears, until I became aware 
that a passenger was going by upon the highroad in the 
valley, and singing loudly as he went. There was more 
of good-will than grace in his performance ; but he trolled 
with ample lungs ; and the sound of his voice took hold 
upon the hillside and set the air shaking in the leafy glens. 
I have heard people passing by night in sleeping cities; 
some of them sang; one, I remember, played loudly on 
the bagpipes. I have heard the rattle of a cart or car- 
riage spring up suddenly after hours of stillness, and pass, 
for some minutes, within the range of my hearing as I 
lay abed. There is a romance about all who are abroad 
in the black hours, and with something of a thrill we try 
to guess their business. But here the romance was 
double: first, this glad passenger, lit internally with 
wine, who sent up his voice in music through the night ; 
and then I, on the other hand, buckled into my sack, 
and smoking alone in the pine-woods between four and 
five thousand feet towards the stars. 

When I awoke again (Sunday, 29th September), many 
of the stars had disappeared ; only the stronger com- 
panions of the night still burned visibly overhead; and 
away towards the east I saw a faint haze of light upon 



8o Travels with a Donkey 

the horizon, such as had been the Milky Way when I 
was last awake. Day was at hand. I lit my lantern, 
and by its glow-worm light put on my boots and gaiters ; 
then I broke up some bread for Modestine, filled my can 
at the water-tap, and lit my spirit-lamp to boil myself 
some chocolate. The blue darkness lay long in the glade 
where I had so sweetly slumbered ; but soon there was a 
broad streak of orange melting into gold along the moun- 
tain-tops of Vivarais. A solemn glee possessed my mind 
at this gradual and lovely coming in of day. I heard the 
runnel with delight; I looked round me for something 
beautiful and unexpected; but the still black pine-trees, 
the hollow glade, the munching ass, remained unchanged 
in figure. Nothing had altered but the light, and that, 
indeed, shed over all a spirit of life and of breathing peace, 
and moved me to a strange exhilaration. 

I drank my water chocolate, which was hot if it was 
not rich, and strolled here and there, and up and down 
about the glade. While I was thus delaying, a gush of 
steady wind, as long as a heavy sigh, poured direct out of 
the quarter of the morning. It was cold, and set me 
sneezing. The trees near at hand tossed their black 
plumes in its passage; and I could see the thin distant 
spires of pine along the edge of the hill rock slightly to 
and fro against the golden east. Ten minutes after, the 
sunlight spread at a gallop along the hillside, scattering 
shadows and sparkles, and the day had come completely. 

I hastened to prepare my pack, and tackle the steep 
ascent that lay before me; but I had something on my 
mind. It was only a fancy ; yet a fancy will sometimes 
be importunate. I had been most hospitably received 
and punctually served in my green caravanserai. The 



I 



Upper Gevaudan 8i 

room was airy, the water excellent, and the dawn had 
called me to a moment. I say nothing of the tapestries 
or the inimitable ceiling, nor yet of the view which I 
commanded from the windows ; but I felt I was in some 
one's debt for all this liberal entertainment. And so it 
pleased me, in a half-laughing way, to leave pieces of 
money on the turf as I went along, until I had left enough 
for my night's lodging. I trust they did not fall to some 
rich and churlish drover. 



THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 



' We travelled in the print of olden wars ; 

Yet all the land was green; 

And love we found, and peace, 

Where fire and war had been. 
They pass and smile, the children of the sword — 

No more the sword they wield; 

And O, how deep the corn 

Along the battle-field!" 

— W. P. Bannatyne. 



THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 

Across the Lozere 

The track that I had followed in the evening soon died 
out, and I continued to follow over a bald turf ascent a 
row of stone pillars, such as had conducted me across the 
Goulet. It was already warm. I tied my jacket on the 
pack, and walked in my knitted waistcoat. Modestine 
herself was in high spirits, and broke of her own accord, 
for the first time in my experience, into a jolting trot that' 
sent the oats swashing in the pocket of my coat. The 
view, back upon the northern Gevaudan, extended with 
every step; scarce a tree, scarce a house, appeared upon 
the fields of wild hill that ran north, east, and west, all 
blue and gold in the haze and sunlight of the morning. 
A multitude of little birds kept sweeping and twittering 
about my path; they perched on the stone pillars, they 
pecked and strutted on the turf, and I saw them circle 
in volleys in the blue air, and show, from time to time, 
translucent flickering wings between the sun and me. 
■ Almost from the first moment of my march, a faint 
large noise, like a distant surf, had filled my ears. Some- 
times I was tempted to think it the voice of a neighbouring 
waterfall, and sometimes a subjective result of the utter 
stillness of the hill. But as I continued to advance, the 
noise increased and became like the hissing of an enor- 
mous teaurn, and at the same time breaths of cool air 

85 



86 Travels with a Donkey 

began to reach me from the direction of the summit. At 
length I understood. It was blowing stiffly from the 
south upon the other slope of the Lozere, and every step 
that I took I was drawing nearer to the wind. 

Although it had been long desired, it was quite un- 
expectedly at last that my eyes rose above the summit. 
A step that seemed no way more decisive than many 
other steps that had preceded it — and, ''like stout Cortez 
when, with eagle eyes, he stared on the Pacific," I took 
possession, in my own name, of a new quarter of the 
world. For behold, instead of the gross turf rampart I 
had been mounting for so long, a view into the hazy air 
of heaven, and a land of intricate blue hills below my feet. 

The Lozere lies nearly east and west, cutting Gevaudan 
into two unequal parts; its highest point, this Pic de 
Finiels, on which I was then standing, rises upwards of 
five thousand six hundred feet above the sea, and in clear 
weather commands a view over all lower Languedoc to 
the Mediterranean Sea. I have spoken with people who 
either pretended or believed that they had seen, from the 
Pic de Finiels, white ships sailing by Montpellier and 
Cette. Behind was the upland northern country through 
which my way had lain, peopled by a dull race, without 
wood, without much grandeur of hill-form and famous in 
the past for little beside wolves. Bu^ in front of me, half 
veiled in sunny haze, lay a new Gevaudan, rich, pictu- 
resque, illustrious for stirring events. Speaking largely, I 
was in the Cevennes at Monastier, and during all my 
journey; but there is a strict and local sense in which 
only this confused and shaggy country at my feet has any 
title to the name, and in this sense the peasantry employ 
the word. These are the Cevennes with an emphasis : 



The Country of the Camisards 87 

the Cevennes of the Cevennes. In that undecipherable 
labyrinth of hills, a war of bandits, a war of wild beasts, 
raged for two years between the Grand Monarch with all 
his troops and marshals on the one hand, and a few thou- 
sand Protestant mountaineers upon the other. A hundred 
and eighty years ago, the Camisards held a station even 
on the Lozere, where I stood ; they had an organisation, 
arsenals, a military and religious hierarchy; their affairs 
were ''the discourse of every coffee-house" in London; 
England sent fleets in their support ; their leaders proph- 
esied and murdered; with colours and drums, and the 
singing of old French psalms, their bands sometimes 
affronted daylight, marched before walled cities, and dis- 
persed the generals of the king ; and sometimes at night, 
or in masquerade, possessed themselves of strong castles, 
and avenged treachery upon their allies and cruelty upon 
their foes. There, a hundred and eighty years ago, was 
the chivalrous Roland, " Count and Lord Roland, generalis- 
simo of the Protestants in France," grave, silent, imperious, 
pock-marked ex-dragoon, whom a lady followed in his 
wanderings out of love. There was Cavalier, a baker's 
apprentice with a genius for war, elected brigadier of 
Camisards at seventeen, to die at fifty-five the English 
governor of Jersey. There again was Castanet, a partisan 
leader in a voluminous peruke and with a taste for contro- 
versial divinity. Strange generals, who moved apart to 
take counsel with the God of Hosts, and fled or offered 
battle, set sentinels or slept in an unguarded camp, as the 
Spirit whispered to their hearts! And there, to follow 
these and other leaders, was the rank and file of prophets 
and disciples, bold, patient, indefatigable, hardy to run 
upon the mountains, cheering their rough life with psalms, 



88 Travels with a Donkey 

eager to fight, eager to pray, listening devoutly to the 
oracles of brain-sick children, and mystically putting a 
grain of wheat among the pewter balls with which they 
charged their muskets. 

I had travelled hitherto through a dull district, and in 
the track of nothing more notable than the child-eating 
Beast of Gevaudan, the Napoleon Buonaparte of wolves. 
But now I was to go down into the scene of a romantic 
chapter — or, better, a romantic foot-note — in the his- 
tory of the world. What was left of all this by-gone dust 
and heroism? I was told that Protestantism still sur- 
vived in this head seat of Protestant resistance ; so much 
the priest himself had told me in the monastery parlour. 
But I had yet to learn if it were a bare survival, or a lively 
and generous tradition. Again, if in the northern Cevennes 
the people are narrow in religious judgments, and more 
filled w4th zeal than charity, what was I to look for in 
this land of persecution and reprisal — in a land where 
the tyranny of the Church produced the Camisard rebel- 
lion, and the terror of the Camisards threw the Catholic 
peasantry into legalised revolt upon the other side, so 
that Camisard and Florentin skulked for each other's 
lives among the mountains? 

Just on the brow of the hill, where I paused to look 
before me, the series of stone pillars came abruptly to an 
end ; and only a little below, a sort of track appeared and 
began to go down a breakneck slope, turning like a cork- 
screw as it went. It led into a valley between falling hills, 
stubbly with rocks like a reaped field of corn, and floored 
further down with green meadows. I followed the track 
with precipitation ; the steepness of the slope, the con- 
tinual agile turning of the line of descent, and the old un- 



The Country of the Camisards 89 

wearied hope of finding something new in a new country, 
all conspired to lend me wings. Yet a little lower and a 
stream began, collecting itself together out of many- 
fountains, and soon making a glad noise among the hills. 
Sometimes it would cross the track in a bit of waterfall, 
with a pool, in which Modestine refreshed her feet. 

The whole descent is like a dream to me, so rapidly 
was it accomplished. I had scarcely left the summit ere 
the valley had closed round my path, and the sun beat 
upon me, walking in a stagnant lowland atmosphere. 
The track became a road, and went up and down in easy 
undulations. I passed cabin after cabin, but all seemed 
deserted ; and I saw not a human creature, nor heard any 
sound except that of the stream. I was, however, in a 
different country from the day before. The stony skele- 
ton of the world was here vigorously displayed to sun and 
air. The slopes were steep and changeful. Oak-trees 
clung along the hills, well grown, wealthy in leaf, and 
touched by the autumn with strong and luminous colours. 
Here and there another stream would fall in from the 
right or the left, down a gorge of snow-white and tumult- 
uary boulders. The river in the bottom (for it was 
rapidly growing a river, collecting on all hands as it 
trotted on its way) here foamed awhile in desperate 
rapids, and there lay in pools of the most enchanting sea- 
green shot with watery browns. As far as I have gone, I 
have never seen a river of so changeful and delicate a hue ; 
crystal was not more clear, the meadows were not by half 
so green ; and at every pool I saw I felt a thrill of longing 
to be out of these hot, dusty, and material garments, and 
bathe my naked body in the mountain air and water. All 
the time as I went on I never forgot it was the Sabbath ; 



90 Travels with a Donkey 

the stillness was a perpetual reminder; and I heard in 
spirit the church-bells clamouring all over Europe, and 
the psalms of a thousand churches. 

At length a human sound struck upon my ear — a cry 
strangely modulated between pathos and derision; and 
looking across the valley, I saw a little urchin sitting in a 
meadow, with his hands about his knees, and dwarfed to 
almost comical smallness by the distance. But the rogue 
had picked me out as I went down the road, from oak- 
wood on to oak-wood, driving Modestine; and he made 
me the compliments of the new country in this tremulous 
high-pitched salutation. And as all noises are lovely and 
natural at a sufficient distance, this also, coming through 
so much clean hill air and crossing all the green valley, 
sounded pleasant to my ear, and seemed a thing rustic, 
like the oaks or the river. 

A little after, the stream that I was following fell into 
the Tarn, at Pont de Montvert of bloody memory. 






I 



Pont de Montvert 

One of the first things I encountered in Pont de Mont- 
vert was, if I remember rightly, the Protestant temple; 
but this was but the type of other novelties. A subtle 
atmosphere distinguishes a town in England from a town 
in France, or even in Scotland. At Carlisle you can see 
you are in one country ; at Dumfries, thirty miles away, 
you are as sure that you are in the other. I should find 
it difficult to tell in what particulars Pont de Montvert 
differed from Monastier or Langogne, or even Bleymard ; 
but the difference existed, and spoke eloquently to the 
eyes. The place, with its houses, its lanes, its glaring 
river-bed, wore an indescribable air of the South. 

All was Sunday bustle in the streets and in the public- 
house, as all had been Sabbath peace among the moun- 
tains. There must have been near a score of us at dinner 
by eleven before noon ; and after I had eaten and drunken, 
and sat writing up my journal, I suppose as many more 
came dropping in one after another, or by twos and threes. 
In crossing the Lozere I had not only come among new 
natural features, but moved into the territory of a dif- 
ferent race. These people, as they hurriedly despatched 
their viands in an intricate sword-play of knives, ques- 
tioned and answered me with a degree of intelligence 
which excelled ah that I had met, except among the rail- 
way folk at Chasserades. They had open telling faces, 
and were lively both in speech and manner. They not 
only entered thoroughly into the spirit of my little trip, 



92 Travels with a Donkey 

but more than one declared, if he were rich enough, he 
would like to set forth on such another. 

Even physically there was a pleasant change. I had 
not seen a pretty woman since I left Monastier, and 
there but one. Now of the three who sat down with me 
to dinner, one was certainly not beautiful — a poor timid 
thing of forty, quite troubled at this roaring table d'hote, 
whom I squired and helped to wine, and pledged and tried 
generally to encourage, with quite a contrary effect ; but 
the other two, both married, were both more handsome 
than the average of women. And Clarisse? What shall 
I say of Clarisse? She waited the table with a heavy 
placable nonchalance, like a performing cow; her great 
grey eyes were steeped in amorous languor ; her features, 
although fleshy, were of an original and accurate design; 
her mouth had a curl ; her nostril spoke of dainty pride ; 
her cheek fell, into strange and interesting lines. It was a 
face capable of strong emotion, and, with training, it 
offered the promise of delicate sentiment. It seemed piti- 
ful to see so good a model left to country admirers and a 
country way of thought. Beauty should at least have 
touched society, then, in a moment, it throws off a weight 
that lay upon it, it becomes conscious of itself, it puts on 
an elegance, learns a gait and a carriage of the head, and, 
in a moment, patet dea. Before I left I assured Clarisse 
of my hearty admiration. She took it like milk, without 
embarrassment or wonder, merely looking at me steadily 
with her great eyes; and I own the result upon myself 
was some confusion. If Clarisse could read English, I 
should not dare to add that her figure was unworthy of 
her face. Hers was a case for stays ; but that may per- 
haps grow better as she gets up in years. 



The Country of the Camisards 93 

Pont de Montvert, or Greenhill Bridge, as we might 
say at home, is a place memorable in the story of the 
Camisards. It was here that the war broke out ; here 
that those southern Covenanters slew their Archbishop 
Sharpe. The persecution on the one hand, the febrile 
enthusiasm on the other, are almost equally difficult to 
understand in these quiet modern days, and with our easy 
modern beliefs and disbeliefs. The Protestants were one 
and all beside their right minds with zeal and sorrow. 
They were all prophets and prophetesses. Children at 
the breast would exhort their parents to good works. "A 
child of fifteen months at Quissac spoke from its mother's 
arms, agitated and sobbing, distinctly and with a loud 
voice." Marshal Villars has seen a town where all the 
women " seemed possessed by the devil," and had trembling 
fits, and uttered prophecies publicly upon the streets. A 
prophetess of Vivarais was hanged at Montpellier because 
blood flowed from her eyes and nose, and she declared 
that she was weeping tears of blood for the misfortunes 
of the Protestants. And it was not only women and 
children. Stalwart dangerous fellow^s, used to swing the 
sickle or to wield the forest axe, were likewise shaken 
with strange paroxysms, and spoke oracles with sobs and 
streaming tears. A persecution unsurpassed in violence 
had lasted near a score of years, and this was the result 
upon the persecuted ; hanging, burning, breaking on the 
wheel, had been vain ; the dragoons had left their hoof- 
marks over all the country-side ; there were men rowing 
in the galleys, and women pining in the prisons of the 
Church ; and not a thought was changed in the heart of 
any upright Protestant. 

Now the head and forefront of the persecution — after 



94 Travels with a Donkey 

Lamoignon de Bavile — Francois de Langlade du Chayla 
(pronounced Cheila), Archpriest of the Cevennes and In- 
spector of Missions in the same country, had a house in 
which he sometimes dwelt in the town of Pont de Mont- 
vert. He was a conscientious person, who seems to have 
been intended by nature for a pirate, and now fifty-five, 
an age by w^hich a man has learned all the moderation of 
which he is capable. A missionary in his youth in China, 
he there suffered martyrdom, was left for dead, and only 
succoured and brought back to life by the charity of a 
pariah. We must suppose the pariah devoid of second 
sight, and not purposely malicious in this act. Such an 
experience, it might be thought, would have cured a man 
of the desire to persecute ; but the human spirit is a thing 
strangely put together ; and, having been a Christian 
martyr, Du Chayla became a Christian persecutor. The 
Work of the Propagation of the Faith went roundly for- 
ward in his hands. His house in Pont de Montvert 
served him as a prison. There he plucked out the hairs 
of the beard, and closed the hands of his prisoners upon 
live coals, to convince them that they were deceived in 
their opinions. And yet had not he himself tried and 
proved the inefhcacy of these carnal arguments among 
the Buddhists in China? 

Not only was life made intolerable in Languedoc, but 
flight was rigidly forbidden. One Massip, a muleteer, and 
well acquainted with the mountain-paths, had already 
guided several troops of fugitives in safety to Geneva; 
and on him, with another convoy, consisting mostly of 
women dressed as men, Du Chayla, in an evil hour foY 
himself, laid his hands. The Sunday following, there was 
a conventicle of Protestants in the woods of Altefage upon 



The Country of the Camisards 95 

Mont Bouges ; where there stood up one Seguier — Spirit 
Seguier, as his companions called him — a wool-carder, 
tall, black-faced, and toothless, but a man full of proph- 
ecy. He declared, in the name of God, that the time 
for submission had gone by, and they must betake them- 
selves to arms for the deliverance of their brethren and 
the destruction of the priests. 

The next night, 24th July, 1702, a sound disturbed the 
Inspector of Missions as he sat in his prison-house at 
Pont de Montvert ; the voices of many men upraised in 
psalmody drew nearer and nearer through the town. It 
was ten at night; he had his court about him, priests, 
soldiers, and servants, to the number of twelve or fifteen ; 
and now dreading the insolence of a conventicle below his 
very windows, he ordered forth his soldiers to report. 
But the psalm-singers were already at his door, fifty 
strong, led by the inspired Seguier, and breathing death. 
To their summons, the arch-priest made answer like a 
stout old persecutor, and bade his garrison fire upon the 
mob. One Camisard (for, according to some, it was in 
this night's work that they came by the name) fell at this 
discharge ; his comrades burst in the door with hatchets 
and a beam of wood, overran the lower story of the house, 
set free the prisoners, and finding one of them in the vine, 
a sort of Scavenger's Daughter of the place and period, 
redoubled in fury against Du Chayla, and sought by re- 
peated assaults to carry the upper floors. But he, on his 
side, had given absolution to his men, and they bravely 
held the staircase. 

"Children of God," cried the prophet, "hold your 
hands. Let us burn the house, with the priest and the 
satellites of Baal." 



96 Travels with a Donkey 

The fire caught readily. Out of an upper window Du 
Chayla and his men lowered themselves into the garden 
by means of knotted sheets; some escaped across the 
river under the bullets of the insurgents ; but the arch- 
priest himself fell, broke his thigh, and could only crawl 
into the hedge. What were his reflections as this second 
martyrdom drew near? A poor, brave, besotted, hateful 
man, who had done his duty resolutely according to his 
light both in the Cevennes and China. He found at least 
one telling word to say in his defence ; for when the roof 
fell in and the upbursting flames discovered his retreat, 
and they came and dragged him to the public place of the 
town, raging and calling him damned — '' If I be damned," 
said he, ''why should you also damn yourselves?" 

Here was a good reason for the last ; but in the course 
of his inspectorship he had given many stronger which 
all told in a contrary direction ; and these he was now to 
hear. One by one, Seguier first, the Camisards drew 
near and stabbed him. "This," they said, "is for my 
father broken on the wheel. This for my brother in the 
galleys. That for my mother or my sister imprisoned in 
your cursed convents." Each gave his blow and his 
reason ; and then all kneeled and sang psalms around the 
body till the dawn. With the dawn, still singing, they 
defiled away towards Frugeres, further up the Tarn, to 
pursue the work of vengeance, leaving Du Chayla's 
prison-house in ruins, and his body pierced with two-and- 
fifty wounds upon the public place. 

'Tis a wild night's work, with its accompaniment of 
psalms ; and it seems as if a psalm must always have a 
sound of threatening in that town upon the Tarn. But 
the story does not end, even so far as concerns Pont de 



I 



The Country of the Camisards 97 

Montvert, with the departure of the Camisards. The 
career of Seguier was brief and bloody. Two more priests 
and a whole family at Ladeveze, from the father to the 
servants, fell by his hand or by his orders ; and yet he 
was but a day or two at large, and restrained all the time 
by the presence of the soldiery. Taken at length by a 
famous soldier of fortune, Captain Poul, he appeared un- 
moved before his judges. 

"Your name?" they asked. 

"Pierre Seguier." 

"Why are you called Spirit?" 

"Because the Spirit of the Lord is with me." 

"Your domicile?" 

"Lately in the desert, and soon in heaven." 

"Have you no remorse for your crimes?" 

"I have committed none. My soul is like a garden full 
of shelter and of fountains.'^ 

At Pont de Montvert, on the 12th of August, he had 
his right hand stricken from his body, and was burned 
alive. And his soul was like a garden? So perhaps was 
the soul of Du Chayla, the Christian martyr. And per- 
haps if you could read in my soul, or I could read in 
yours, our own composure might seem little less surprising. 

Du Chayla's house still stands, with a new roof, beside 
one of the bridges of the town; and if you are curious 
you may see the terrace-garden into which he dropped. 



In the Valley of the Tarn 

A NEW road leads from Ponl de Montvert to Florae by 
the valley of the Tarn ; a smooth sandy ledge, it runs 
about half-way between the summit of the cliffs and the 
river in the bottom of the valley ; and I went in and out, 
as I followed it, from bays of shadow into promontories 
of afternoon sun. This was a pass like that of Killie- 
crankie ; a deep turning gully in the hills, with the Tarn 
making a wonderful hoarse uproar far below, and craggy 
summits standing in the sunshine high above. A thin 
fringe of ash-trees ran about the hill-tops, like ivy on a 
ruin ; but on the lower slopes and far up every glen the 
Spanish chestnut-trees stood each four-square to heaven 
under its tented foliage. Some were planted each on its 
own terrace, no larger than a bed ; some, trusting in their 
roots, found strength to grow and prosper and be straight 
and large upon the rapid slopes of the valley; others, 
where there was a margin to the river, stood marshalled 
in a Hne and mighty like cedars of Lebanon. Yet even 
where they grew most thickly they were not to be thought 
of as a wood, but as a herd of stalwart individuals ; and 
the dome of each tree stood forth separate and large, and 
as it were a little hill, from among the domes of its com- 
panions. They gave forth a faint sweet perfume which 
pervaded the air of the afternoon ; autumn had put tints 
of gold and tarnish in the green ; and the sun so shone 
through and kindled the broad foliage, that each chestnut 

93 



The Country of the Camisards 99 

was relieved against another, not in shadow, but in light. 
A humble sketcher here laid down his pencil in despair. 

I wish I could convey a notion of the growth of these 
noble trees; of how they strike out boughs like the oak, 
and trail sprays of drooping foliage like the willow; of 
how they stand on upright fluted columns like the pillars 
of a church; or like the olive, from the most shattered 
bole can put out smooth and youthful shoots, and begin 
a new life upon the ruins of the old. Thus they partake 
of the nature of many different trees; and even their 
prickly top-knots, seen near at hand against the sky, 
have a certain palm-like air that impresses the imagina- 
tion. But their individuality, although compounded of 
so many elements, is but the richer and the more original. 
And to look down upon a level filled with these knolls of 
foliage, or to see a clan of old unconquerable chestnuts 
cluster ''like herded elephants" upon the spur of a moun- 
tain, is to rise to higher thoughts of the powers that are 
in Nature. 

Between Modestine's laggard humour and the beauty 
of the scene, we made little progress all that afternoon ; 
and at last finding the sun, although still far from setting, 
was already beginning to desert the narrow valley of the 
Tarn, I began to cast about for a place to camp in. This 
was not easy to find ; the terraces were too narrow, and 
the ground, where it was unterraced, was usually too 
steep for a man to lie upon. I should have slipped all 
night, and awakened towards morning with my feet or 
my head in the river. 

After perhaps a mile, I saw, some sixty feet above the 
road, a little plateau large enough to hold my sack, and 
securely parapeted by the trunk of an aged and enormous 



lOO Travels with a Donkey- 

chestnut. Thither, with infinite trouble I goaded and 
kicked the reluctant Modestine and there I hastened to 
unload her. There was only room for myself upon the 
plateau, and I had to go nearly as high again before I 
found so much as standing room for the ass. It was on a 
heap of rolling stones, on an artificial terrace, certainly 
not five feet square in all. Here I tied her to a chestnut, 
and having given her corn and bread and made a pile of 
chestnut-leaves, of which I found her greedy, I descended 
once more to my own encampment. 

The position was unpleasantly exposed. One or two 
carts went by upon the road; and as long as daylight 
lasted I concealed myself, for all the world like a hunted 
Camisard, behind my fortification of vast chestnut trunk ; 
for I was passionately afraid of discovery and the visit of 
jocular persons in the night. Moreover, I saw that I 
must be early awake ; for these chestnut gardens had been 
the scene of industry no farther gone than on the day 
before. The slope was strewn with lopped branches, 
and here and there a great package of leaves was propped 
against a trunk ; for even the leaves are serviceable, and 
the peasants use them in winter by way of fodder for their 
animals. I picked a meal in fear and trembling, half 
lying down to hide myself from the road ; and I dare say 
I was as much concerned as if I had been a scout from 
Joani's band above upon the Lozere or from Salomon's 
across the Tarn in the old times of psalm-singing and 
blood. Or, indeed, perhaps more; for the Camisards 
had a remarkable confidence in God; and a tale comes 
back into my memory of how the Count of Gevaudan, 
riding with a party of dragoons and a notary at his saddle- 
bow to enforce the oath of fidelity in all the country ham- 



The Country of the Camlsards loi 

lets, entered a valley in the woods, and found Cavalier 
and his men at dinner, gaily seated on the grass, and 
their hats crowned with box-tree garlands, while fifteen 
women washed their linen in the stream. Such was a 
field festival in 1 703 ; at that date Antony Watteau 
would be painting similar subjects. 

This was a very different camp from that of the night 
before in the cool and silent pine-woods. It was warm 
and even stifling in the valley. The shrill song of frogs, 
like the tremolo note of a whistle with a pea in it, rang 
up from the riverside before the sun was down. In the 
growing dusk, faint rustlings began to run to and fro 
among the fallen leaves ; from time to time a faint chirp- 
ing or cheeping noise would fall upon my ear ; and from 
time to time I thought I could see the movement of some- 
thing swift and indistinct between the chestnuts. A 
profusion of large ants swarmed upon the ground ; bats 
whisked by, and mosquitoes droned overhead. The long 
boughs with their bunches of leaves hung against the sky 
like garlands ; and those immediately above and around 
me had somewhat the air of a trellis which should have 
been wrecked and half overthrown in a gale of wind. 

Sleep for a long time fled my eyelids ; and just as I 
was beginning to feel quiet stealing over my limbs, and 
settling densely on my mind, a noise at my head startled 
me broad awake again, and, I will frankly confess it, 
brought my heart into my mouth. It was such a noise 
as a person would make scratching loudly with a finger- 
nail, it came from under the knapsack which served me 
for a pillow, and it was thrice repeated before I had time 
to sit up and turn about. Nothing was to be seen, noth- 
ing more was to be heard, but a few of these mysterious 



I02 Travels with a Donkey 

rustlings far and near, and the ceaseless accompaniment 
of the river and the frogs. I learned next day that the 
chestnut gardens are infested by rats ; rustling, chirping, 
and scraping were probably all due to these; but the 
puzzle, for the moment, was insoluble, and I had to com- 
pose myself for sleep, as best I could, in wondering un- 
certainty about my neighbours. 

I was wakened in the grey of the morning (Monday, 
30th September) by the sound of footsteps not far off 
upon the stones, and opening my eyes, I beheld a peasant 
going by among the chestnuts by a foot-path that I had 
not hitherto observed. He turned his head neither to the 
right nor to the left, and disappeared in a few strides 
among the foliage. Here was an escape ! But it was 
plainly more than time to be moving. The peasantry 
were abroad ; scarce less terrible to me in my nondescript 
position than the soldiers of Captain Poul to an un- 
daunted Camisard. I fed Modestine with what haste I 
could ; but as I was returning to my sack, I saw a man 
and a boy come down the hillside in a direction crossing 
mine. They unintelligibly hailed me, and I replied with 
inarticulate but cheerful sounds, and hurried forward to 
get into my gaiters. 

The pair, who seemed to be father and son, came 
slowly up to the plateau, and stood close beside me for 
some time in silence. The bed was open, and I saw with 
regret my revolver lying patiently disclosed on the blue 
wool. At last, after they had looked me all over, and 
silence had grown laughably embarrassing, the man 
demanded in what seemed unfriendly tones : 

"You have slept here?" 

"Yes," said I. "As you see." 



The Country of the Camisards 103 

"Why?" he asked. 

''My faith," I answered Ughtly, "I was tired." He 
next inquired where I was going and what I had had 
for dinner; and then, without the least transition, '^C^est 
bien,'^ he added. "Come along." And he and his son, 
without another word, turned off to the next chestnut- 
tree but one, which they set to pruning. The thing had 
passed off more simply than I hoped. He was a grave, 
respectable man ; and his unfriendly voice did not imply 
that he thought he was speaking to a criminal, but merely 
to an inferior. 

I was soon on the road, nibbling a cake of chocolate 
and seriously occupied with a case of conscience. Was I 
to pay for my night's lodging? I had slept ill, the bed 
was full of fleas in the shape of ants, there was no water 
in the room, the very dawn had neglected to call me in 
the morning. I might have missed a train, had there 
been any in the neighbourhood to catch. Clearly, I was 
dissatisfied with my entertainment; and I decided I 
should not pay unless I met a beggar. 

The valley looked even lovelier by morning ; and soon 
the road descended to the level of the river. Here, in a 
place where many straight and prosperous chestnuts 
stood together, making an aisle upon a swarded terrace, 
I made my morning toilette in the water of the Tarn. It 
was marvellously clear, thrillingly cool; the soap-suds 
disappeared as if by magic in the swift current, and the 
white boulders gave one a model for cleanliness. To 
wash in one of God's rivers in the open air seems to me a 
sort of cheerful solemnity or semi-pagan act of worship. 
To dabble among dishes in a bedroom may perhaps 
make clean the body ; but the imagination takes no share 



I04 Travels with a Donkey 

in such a cleansing. I went on with a light and peaceful 
heart, and sang psalms to the spiritual ear as I advanced. 

Suddenly up came an old woman, who point-blank 
demanded alms. 

''Good!" thought I; "here comes the waiter with the 
bill." 

And I paid for my night's lodging on the spot. Take 
it how you please, but this was the first and the last 
beggar that I met with during all my tour. 

A step or two farther I was overtaken by an old man 
in a brown nightcap, clear-eyed, weather-beaten, with a 
faint, excited smile. A little girl followed him, driving 
two sheep and a goat ; but she kept in our wake, while 
the old man walked beside me and talked about the 
morning and the valley. It was not much past six ; and 
for healthy people who have slept enough, that is an 
hour of expansion and of open and trustful talk. 

'^ Conjiaissez-vous le Seigneur?'' he said at length. 

I asked him what Seigneur he meant ; but he only 
repeated the question with more emphasis and a look in 
his eyes denoting hope and interest. 

"Ah!" said I, pointing upwards, "I understand you, 
now. Yes, I know Him ; He is the best of acquaintances." 

The old man said he was delighted. "Hold," he added, 
striking his bosom; "it makes me happy here." There 
were a few who knew the Lord in these valleys, he went 
on to tell me ; not many, but a few\ "Many are called," 
he quoted, "and few chosen." 

"My father," said I, "it is not easy to say who know 
the Lord; and it is none of our business. Protestants 
and Catholics, and even those who worship stones, may 
know Him and be known by Him ; for He has made all." 



The Country of the Camisards 105 

I did not know I was so good a preacher. 

The old man assured me he thought as I did, and re- 
peated his expressions of pleasure at meeting me. "We 
are so few," he said. "They call us Moravians here; 
but down in the department of Gard, where there are 
also a good number, they are called Derbists, after an 
English pastor." 

I began to understand that I was figuring, in question- 
able taste, as a member of some sect to me unknown; 
but I was more pleased with the pleasure of my com- 
panion than embarrassed by my own equivocal position. 
Indeed I can see no dishonesty in not avowing a differ- 
ence; and especially in these high matters, where we 
have all a sufficient assurance that, whoever may be in 
the wrong, we ourselves are not completely in the right. 
The truth is much talked about; but this old man in a 
brown nightcap showed himself so simple, sweet, and 
friendly that I am not unwilling to profess myself his 
convert. He was, as a matter of fact, a Plymouth Brother. 
Of what that involves in the way of doctrine I have no 
idea nor the time to inform myself ; but I know right well 
that we are all embarked upon a troublesome world, the 
children of one Father, striving in many essential points 
to do and to become the same. And although it was 
somewhat in a mistake that he shook hands with me so 
often and showed himself so ready to receive my words, 
that was a mistake of the truth-finding sort. For charity 
begins blindfold; and only through a series of similar 
misapprehensions rises at length into a settled principle 
of love and patience, and a firm belief in all our fellow- 
men. If I deceived this good old man, in the like man- 
ner I would willingly go on to deceive others. And if 



io6 Travels with a Donkey 

ever at length, out of our separate and sad ways, we 
should all come together into one common house, I 
have a hope, to which I cling dearly, that my mountain 
Plymouth Brother will hasten to shake hands with me 
again. 

Thus, talking like Christian and Faithful by the way, 
he and I came down upon a hamlet by the Tarn. It was 
but a humble place, called La Vernede, with less than a 
dozen houses, and a Protestant chapel on a knoll. Here 
he dwelt ; and here, at the inn, I ordered my breakfast. 
The inn was kept by an agreeable young man, a stone- 
breaker on the road, and his sister, a pretty and engaging 
girl. The village school-master dropped in to speak with 
the stranger. And these were all Protestants — a fact 
which pleased me more than I should have expected; 
and, what pleased me still more, they seemed all upright 
and simple people. The Plymouth Brother hung round 
me with a sort of yearning interest, and returned at least 
thrice to make sure I was enjoying my meal. His be- 
haviour touched me deeply at the time, and even now 
moves me in recollection. He feared to intrude, but he 
would not willingly forego one moment of my society; 
and he seemed never weary of shaking me by the hand. 

When all the rest had drifted off to their day's work, 
I sat for near half an hour with the young mistress of the 
house, who talked pleasantly over her seam of the chest- 
nut harvest, and the beauties of the Tarn, and old family 
affections, broken up when young folk go from home, yet 
still subsisting. Hers, I am sure, was a sweet nature, 
with a country plainness and much delicacy underneath ; 
and he who takes her to his heart will doubtless be a for- 
tunate young man. 



The Country of the Camisards 107 

The valley below La Vernede pleased me more and 
more as I went forward. Now the hills approached from 
either hand, naked and crumbling, and walled in the river 
between cliffs ; and now the valley widened and became 
green. The road led me past the old castle of Miral on 
a steep ; past a battlemented monastery, long since broken 
up and turned into a church and parsonage ; and past a 
cluster of black roofs, the village of Cocures, sitting 
among vineyards and meadows and orchards thick with 
red apples, and where, along the highway, they were 
knocking down walnuts from the roadside trees, and 
gathering them in sacks and baskets. The hills, however 
much the vale might open, were still tall and bare, with 
cliffy battlements and here and there a pointed summit; 
and the Tarn still rattled through the stones with a moun- 
tain noise. I had been led, by bagmen of a picturesque 
turn of mind, to expect a horrific country after the heart 
of Byron ; but to my Scotch eyes it seemed smiling and 
plentiful, as the weather still gave an impression of high 
summer to my Scotch body; although the chestnuts 
were already picked out by the autumn, and the poplars, 
that here began to mingle with them, had turned into 
pale gold against the approach of winter. 

There was something in this landscape, smiling although 
wild, that explained to me the spirit of the Southern 
Covenanters. Those who took to the hills for conscience' 
sake in Scotland had all gloomy and bedevilled thoughts ; 
for once that they received God's comfort they would 
be twice engaged with Satan; but the Camisards had 
only bright and supporting visions. They dealt much 
more in blood, both given and taken; yet I find no 
obsession of the Evil One in their records. With a light 



io8 Travels with a Donkey 

conscience, they pursued their Hfe in these rough times 
and circumstances. The soul of Seguier, let us not for- 
get, was like a garden. They knew they were on God's 
side, with a knowledge that has no parallel among the 
Scots; for the Scots, although they might be certain of 
the cause, could never rest confident of the person. 

''We flew," says one old Camisard, ''when we heard 
the sound of psalm-singing, we flew as if with wings. 
We felt within us an animating ardour, a transporting 
desire. The feeling cannot be expressed in words. It is 
a thing that must have been experienced to be under- 
stood. However weary we might be, we thought no 
more of our weariness and grew light, so soon as the 
psalms fell upon our ears." 

The valley of the Tarn and the people whom I met at 
La Vernede not only explain to me this passage, but the 
twenty years of suffering which those, who were so stiff 
and so bloody when once they betook themselves to war 
endured with the meekness of children and the constancy 
of saints and peasants. 



Florae 

On a branch of the Tarn stands Florae, the seat of a 
subprefecture, with an old castle, an alley of planes, 
many quaint street-corners, and a live fountain welling 
from the hill. It is notable, besides, for handsome 
women, and as one of the tw^o capitals, Alais being the 
other, of the country of the Camisards. 

The landlord of the inn took me, after I had eaten, to 
an adjoining cafe, where I, or rather my journey, became 
the topic of the afternoon. Every one had some sugges- 
tion for my guidance ; and the subprefectorial map was 
fetched from the subprefecture itself, and much thumbed 
among coffee-cups and glasses of liqueur. Most of these 
kind advisers were Protestant, though I observed that 
Protestant and Catholic intermingled in a very easy 
manner ; and it surprised me to see what a lively memory 
still subsisted of the religious war. Among the hills of the 
south-west, by Mauchline, Cumnock, or Carsphairn, in 
isolated farms or in the manse, serious Presbyterian 
people still recall the days of the great persecution, and 
the graves of local martyrs are still piously regarded. 
But in towns and among the so-called better classes, I 
fear that these old doings have become an idle tale. If 
you met a mixed company in the King's Arms at Wig- 
town, it is not likely that the talk would run on Covenant- 
ers. Nay, at Muirkirk of Glenluce, I found the beadle's 
wife had not so much as heard of Prophet Peden. But 

109 



no Travels with a Donkey 

these Cevenols were proud of their ancestors in quite 
another sense ; the war was their chosen topic ; its exploits 
were their own patent of nobility ; and where a man or a 
race has had but one adventure, and that heroic, we 
must expect and pardon some prolixity of reference. 
They told me the country was still full of legends hitherto 
uncollected ; I heard from them about Cavalier's descend- 
ants — not direct descendants, be it understood, but 
only cousins or nephews — who were still prosperous 
people in the scene of the boy-general's exploits ; and one 
farmer had seen the bones of old combatants dug up- into 
the air of an afternoon in the nineteenth century, in a 
field where the ancestors had fought, and the great- 
gi^andchildren were peaceably ditching. 

Later in the day one of the Protestant pastors was so 
good as to visit me : a young man, intelligent and polite, 
with whom I passed an hour or two in talk. Florae, he 
told me, is part Protestant, part Catholic; and the dif- 
ference in religion is usually doubled by the difference in 
politics. You may judge of my surprise, coming as I did 
from such a babbling purgatorial Poland of a place as 
Monastier, when I learned that the population lived 
together on very quiet terms; and there was even an 
exchange of hospitalities between households thus doubly 
separated. Black Camisard and V.^hite Camisard, militia- 
man and Miquelet and dragoon, Protestant prophet and 
Catholic cadet of the White Cross, they had all been 
sabring and shooting, burning, pillaging, and murdering, 
their hearts hot with indignant passion ; and here, after a 
hundred and seventy years, Protestant is still Protestant, 
Catholic still Catholic, in mutual toleration and mild 
amity of life. But the race of man, like that indomitable 



The Country of the Camlsards iii 

nature whence it sprang, has medicating virtues of its 
own ; the years and seasons bring various harvests ; the 
sun returns after the rain ; and mankind outlives secular 
animosities, as a single man awakens from the passions of 
a day. We judge our ancestors from a more divine posi- 
tion; and the dust being a little laid with several cen- 
turies, we can see both sides adorned with human virtues 
and fighting with a show of right. 




The Market Place at Le Puy 



I have never thought it easy to be just, and find it 
daily even harder than I thought. I own I met these 
Protestants with delight and a sense of coming home. I 
was accustomed to speak their language, in another and 
deeper sense of the word than that which distinguishes 
between French and English; for the true babel is a 
divergence upon morals. And hence I could hold more 
free communication with the Protestants, and judge 
them more justly, than the Catholics. Father ApoUinaris 



112 Travels with a Donkey 

may pair off with my mountain Plymouth Brother as two 
guileless and devout old men ; yet I ask myself if I had 
as ready a feeling for the virtues of the Trappist ; or had 
I been a Catholic, if I should have felt so warmly to the 
dissenter of La Vernede. With the first I was on terms of 
mere forbearance; but with the other, although only on 
a misunderstanding and by keeping on selected points, 
it was still possible to hold converse and exchange some 
honest thoughts. In this world of imperfection we gladly 
welcome even partial intimacies. If we find but one to 
whom we can speak out of our heart freely, with whom 
we can walk in love and simplicity without dissimulation, 
we have no ground of quarrel with the world or God. 



In the Valley of the Mimente 

On Tuesday, ist October, we left Florae late in the 
afternoon, a tired donkey and tired donkey-driver. A 
little way up the Tarnon, a covered bridge of wood intro- 
duced us into the valley of the Mimente. Steep rocky 
red mountains overhung the stream; great oaks and 
chestnuts grew upon the slopes or in stony terraces ; here 
and there was a red field of millet or a few apple-trees 
studded with red apples; and the road passed hard by 
two black hamlets, one with an old castle atop to please 
the heart of the tourist. 

It was difficult here again to find a spot fit for my en- 
campment. Even under the oaks and chestnuts the 
ground had not only a very rapid slope, but was heaped 
with loose stones ; and where there was no timber the 
hills descended to the stream in a red precipice tufted with 
heather. The sun had left the highest peak in front of 
me, and the vaUey was full of the lowing sound of herds- 
men's horns as they recalled the flocks into the stable, 
when I spied a bight of meadow some way below the 
roadway in an angle of the river. Thither I descended, 
and, tying Modestine provisionally to a tree, proceeded to 
investigate the neighbourhood. A grey pearly evening 
shadow filled the glen ; objects at a little distance grew 
indistinct and melted bafflingly into each other ; and the 
darkness was rising steadily like an exhalation. I ap- 
proached a great oak which grew in the meadow, hard 

113 



114 Travels with a Donkey 

by the river's brink; when to my disgust the voices of 
children fell upon my ear, and I beheld a house round 
the angle on the other bank. I had half a mind to pack 
and be gone again, but the growing darkness moved me 
to remain. I had only to make no noise until the night 
was fairly come, and trust to the dawn to call me early 
in the morning. But it was hard to be annoyed by 
neighbours in such a great hotel. 

A hollow underneath the oak was my bed. Before I 
had fed Modestine and arranged my sack, three stars 
were already brightly shining, and the others were begin- 
ning dimly to appear. I slipped down to the river, 
which looked very black among its rocks, to fill my can ; 
and dined with a good appetite in the dark, for I scrupled 
to light a lantern w^hile so near a house. The moon, 
which I had seen, a pallid crescent, all afternoon, faintly 
illuminated the summit of the hills, but not a ray fell into 
the bottom of the glen where I was lying. The oak rose 
before me like a pillar of darkness ; and overhead the 
heartsome stars were set in the face of the night. No 
one knows the stars who has not slept, as the French 
happily put it, a la belle etoile. He may know all their 
names and distances and magnitudes, and yet be ignorant 
of what alone concerns mankind, their serene and glad- 
some influence on the mind. The greater part of poetry 
is about the stars ; and very justly, for they are them- 
selves the most classical of poets. These same far-away 
worlds, sprinkled like tapers or shaken together like a 
diamond dust upon the sky, had looked not otherwise to 
Roland or Cavalier, when, in the words of the latter, they 
had "no other tent but the sky, and no other bed than 
my mother earth." 



The Country of the Camlsards 115 

All night a strong wind blew up the valley, and the 
acorns fell pattering over me from the oak. Yet, on this 
first night of October, the air was as mild as May, and I 
slept with the fur thrown back. 

I was much disturbed by the barking of a dog, an ani- 
mal that I fear more than any wolf. A dog is vastly 
braver, and is besides supported by the sense of duty. 
If you kill a wolf, you meet with encouragement and 
praise ; but if you kill a dog, the sacred rights of property 
and the domestic affections come clamouring round you 
for redress. At the end of a fagging day, the sharp, cruel 
note of a dog's bark is in itself a keen annoyance; and 
to a tramp like myself, he represents the sedentary and 
respectable world in its most hostile form. There is 
something of the clergyman or the lawyer about this 
engaging animal ; and if he were not amenable to stones, 
the boldest man would shrink from travelling afoot. I 
respect dogs much in the domestic circle ; but on the 
highway or sleeping afield, I both detest and fear them. 

I was wakened next morning (Wednesday, October 2d) 
by the same dog — for I knew his bark — making a 
charge down the bank, and then, seeing me sit up, re- 
treating again with great alacrity. The stars were not 
yet quite extinguished. The heaven was of that enchant- 
ing mild grey-blue of the early morn. A still clear light 
began to fall, and the trees on the hillside were outlined 
sharply against the sky. The wind had veered more to 
the north, and no longer reached me in the glen ; but as 
I was going on with my preparations, it drove a white 
cloud very swiftly over the hill-top; and looking up, I 
was surprised to see the cloud dyed with gold. In these 
high regions of the air, the sun was already shining as at 



Ii6 Travels with a Donkey 

noon. If only the clouds travelled high enough, we 
should see the same thing all night long. For it is always 
daylight in the fields of space. 

As I began to go up the valley, a draught of wind 
came down it out of the seat of the sunrise, although the 
clouds continued to run overhead in an almost contrary 
direction. A few steps farther, and I saw a whole hill- 
side gilded with the sun ; and still a little beyond, between 
two peaks, a centre of dazzling brilliancy appeared float- 
ing in the sky, and I was once more face to face with the 
big bonfire that occupies the kernel of our system. 

I met but one human being that forenoon, a dark 
mihtary-looking wayfarer, who carried a game-bag on a 
baldric; but he made a remark that seems worthy of 
record. For when I asked him if he were Protestant or 
Catholic 

"O," said he, ''I make no shame of my religion. I 
am a Catholic." 

He made no shame of it ! The phrase is a piece of 
natural statistics ; for it is the language of one in a minority. 
I thought with a smile of Bavile and his dragoons, and 
how you may ride rough-shod over a religion for a cen- 
tury, and leave it only the more lively for the friction. 
Ireland is still Catholic ; the Cevennes still Protestant. 
It is not a basketful of law-papers, nor the hoofs and 
pistol-butts of a regiment of horse, that can change one 
tittle of a ploughman's thoughts. Outdoor rustic people 
have not many ideas, but such as they have are hardy 
plants and thrive flourishingly in persecution. One who 
has grown a long while in the sweat of laborious noons, 
and under the stars at night, a frequenter of hills and 
forests, an old honest countryman, has, in the end, a 



The Country of the Camisards 117 

sense of communion with the powers of the universe, and 
amicable relations towards his God. Like my mountain 
Plymouth Brother, he knows the Lord. His religion does 
not repose upon a choice of logic ; it is the poetry of the 
man's experience, the philosophy of the history of his life. 
God, like a great power, like a great shining sun, has 
appeared to this simple fellow in the course of years, and 
become the ground and essence of his least reflections; 
and you may change creeds and dogmas by authority, or 
proclaim a new religion with the sound of trumpets, if 
you will ; but here is a man who has his own thoughts, 
and will stubbornly adhere to them in good and evil. 
He is a Catholic, a Protestant, or a Plymouth Brother, 
in the same indefeasible sense that a man is not a woman, 
or a woman not a man. For he could not vary from his 
faith, unless he could eradicate all memory of the past, 
and, in a strict and not a conventional meaning, change 
his mind. 



The Heart of the Country 

I WAS now drawing near to Cassagnas, a cluster of 
black roofs upon the hillside, in this wild valley, among 
chestnut gardens, and looked upon in the clear air by 
many rocky peaks. The road along the Mimente is yet 
new, nor have the mountaineers recovered their surprise 
when the first cart arrived at Cassagnas. But although 
it lay thus apart from the current of men's business, this 
hamlet had already made a figure in the history of France. 
Hard by, in caverns of the mountain, was one of the five 
arsenals of the Camisards ; where they laid up clothes 
and corn and arms against necessity, forged bayonets 
and sabres, and made themselves gunpowder with willow 
charcoal and saltpetre boiled in kettles. To the same 
caves, amid this multifarious industry, the sick and 
wounded were brought up to heal; and there they were 
visited by the two surgeons, Chabrier and Tavan, and 
secretly nursed by women of the neighbourhood. 

Of the five legions into which the Camisards were 
divided, it was the oldest and the most obscure that had 
its magazines by Cassagnas. This was the band of 
Spirit Seguier ; men who had joined their voices with his 
in the 68th Psalm as they marched down by night on the 
archpriest of the Cevennes. Seguier, promoted to heaven, 
was succeeded by Salomon Couderc, whom Cavalier 
treats in his memoirs as chaplain-general to the whole 
army of the Camisards. He was a prophet; a great 

ii8 



The Country of the Camisards 119 

reader of the heart, who admitted people to the sacrament 
or refused them by ''intentively viewing every man" 
between the eyes; and had the most of the Scriptures 
off by rote. And this was surely happy ; since in a sur- 
prise in August, 1703, he lost his mule, his portfolios, and 
his Bible. It is only strange that they were not sur- 
prised more often and more effectually; for this legion 
of Cassagnas was truly patriarchal in its theory of war, 
and camped without sentries, leaving that duty to the 
angels of the God for whom they fought. This is a token, 
not only of their faith, but of the trackless country where 
they harboured. M. de Caladon, taking a stroll one fine 
day, walked without warning into their midst, as he 
might have walked into "a. flock of sheep in a plain," and 
found some asleep and some awake and psalm-singing. 
A traitor had need of no recommendation to insinuate 
himself among their ranks, beyond ''his faculty of sing- 
ing psalms"; and even the prophet Salomon "took him 
into a particular friendship." Thus, among their intri- 
cate hills, the rustic troop subsisted ; and history can 
attribute few exploits to them but sacraments and ecstasies. 
People of this tough and simple stock will not, as I 
have just been saying, prove variable in religion; nor 
will they get nearer to apostasy than a mere external con- 
formity like that of Naaman in the house of Rimmon. 
When Louis XVI., in the words of the edict, "convinced 
by the uselessness of a century of persecutions, and rather 
from necessity than sympathy," granted at last a royal 
grace of toleration, Cassagnas was still Protestant ; and 
to a man, it is so to this day. There is, indeed, one family 
that is not Protestant, but neither is it Catholic. It is 
that of a Catholic cure in revolt, who has taken to his 



I20 Travels with a Donkey 

• 
bosom a schoolmistress. And his conduct, it's worth 

noting, is disapproved by the Protestant villagers. 

"It is a bad idea for a man," said one, "to go back 
from his engagements." 

The villagers whom I saw seemed intelligent after a 
countrified fashion, and were all plain and dignified in 
manner. As a Protestant myself, I was well looked upon, 
and my acquaintance with history gained me farther 
respect. For we had something not unlike a religious 
controversy at table, a gendarme and a merchant with 
whom I dined being both strangers to the place and 
Catholics. The young men of the house stood round and 
supported me; and the whole discussion was tolerantly 
conducted, and surprised a man brought up among the 
infinitesimal and contentious differences of Scotland. 
The merchant, indeed, grew a little warm, and was far 
less pleased than some others with my historical acquire- 
ments. But the gendarme was mighty easy over it all. 

"It's a bad idea for a man to change," said he; and 
the remark was generally applauded. 

That was not the opinion of the priest and soldier at 
our Lady of the Snows. But .this is a different race; 
and perhaps the same great-heartedness that upheld them 
to resist, now enables them to differ in a kind spirit. For 
courage respects courage; but where a faith has been 
trodden out, we may look for a mean and narrow popu- 
lation. The true work of Bruce and Wallace was the 
union of the nations; not that they should stand apart 
awhile longer, skirmishing upon their borders ; but that, 
when the time came, they might unite with self-respect. 
The merchant w^as much interested in my journey, and 
thought it dangerous to sleep afield. 



The Country of the Camisards 121 

''There are the wolves," said he; "and then it is 
known you are an EngHshman. The EngUsh have always 
long purses, and it might very well enter into some one's 
head to deal you an ill blow some night." 

r told him I was not much afraid of such accidents; 
and at any rate judged it unwise to dwell upon alarms or 
consider small perils in the arrangement of life. Life 
itself, I submitted, was a far too risky business as a whole 
to make each additional particular of danger worth regard. 
•''Something," said I, "might burst in your inside any 
day of the week, and there would be an end of you, if 
you were locked into your room with three turns of the 
key." 

"Cependant,'' said he, ^'coucher dehors!^' 

"God," said I, "is everywhere." 

^^Cependant, coucher dehors! " he repeated, and his voice 
was eloquent of terror. 

He was the only person, in all my voyage, who saw 
anything hardy in so simple a proceeding ; although many 
considered it superfluous. Only one, on the other hand, 
professed much delight in the idea; and that was my 
Plymouth Brother, who cried out, when I told him I 
sometimes preferred sleeping under the stars to a close 
and noisy alehouse, "Now I see that you know the 
Lord!" 

The merchant asked me for one of my cards as I was 
leaving, for he said I should be something to talk of in 
the future, and desired me to make a note of his request 
and reason ; a desire with which I have thus complied. 

A little after two I struck across the Mimente, and 
took a rugged path southward up a hillside covered with 
loose stones and tufts of heather. At the top, as is the 



122 Travels with a Donkey 

habit of the country, the path disappeared; and I left 
my she-ass munching heather, and went forward alone 
to seek a road. 

I was now on the separation of two vast watersheds; 
behind me all the streams were bound for the Garonne 
and the Western Ocean ; before me was the basin of the 
Rhone. Hence, as from the Lozere, you can see in clear 
weather the shining of the Gulf of Lyons; and perhaps 
from here the soldiers of Salomon may have watched for 
the topsails of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, and the long- 
promised aid from England. You may take this ridge 
as lying in the heart of the country of the Camisards; 
four of the five legions camped all round it and almost 
within view — Salomon and Joani to the north, Castanet 
and Roland to the south; and when Julein had finished 
his famous work, the devastation of the High Cevennes, 
which lasted all through October and November, 1703, 
and during which four hundred and sixty villages and 
hamlets were, with fire and pickaxe, utterly subverted, a 
man standing on this eminence would have looked forth 
upon a silent, smokeless, and dispeopled land. Time and 
man's activity have now repaired these ruins ; Cassagnas 
is once more roofed and sending up domestic smoke; 
and in the chestnut gardens, in low and leafy corners, 
many a prosperous farmer returns, when the day's work 
is done, to his children and bright hearth. And still it 
was perhaps the w^ildest view of all my journey. Peak 
upon peak, chain upon chain of hills ran surging south- 
ward, channelled and sculptured by the winter streams, 
feathered from head to foot with chestnuts, and here and 
there breaking out into a coronal of cliffs. The sun, 
which was still far from setting, sent a drift of misty gold 



The Country of the Camlsards 123 

across the hill-tops, but the valleys were already plunged 
in a profound and quiet shadow. 

A very old shepherd, hobbling on a pair of sticks, and 
wearing a black cap of liberty, as if in honour of his near- 
ness to the grave, directed me to the road for St. Ger- 
main de Calberte. There was something solemn in the 
isolation of this infirm and ancient creature. Where he 
dwelt, how he got upon this high ridge, or how he pro- 
posed to get down again, were more than I could fancy. 
Not far off upon my right was the famous Plan de Font 
Morte, where Poul with his Armenian sabre slashed down 
the Camisards of Seguier. This, methought, might be 
some Rip van Winkle of the war, who had lost his com- 
rades, fleeing before Poul, and wandered ever since upon 
the mountains. It might be news to him that Cavalier 
had surrendered, or Roland had fallen fighting with his 
back against an olive. And while I was thus working on 
my fancy, I heard him hailing in broken tones, and saw 
him waving me to come back with one of his two sticks. 
I had already got some way past him; but, leaving 
Modestine once more, retraced my steps. 

Alas, it was a very commonplace affair. The old 
gentleman had forgot to ask the pedlar what he sold, 
and wished to remedy this neglect. 

I told him sternly, "Nothing." 

''Nothing?" cried he. 

I repeated "Nothing," and made off. 

It's odd to think of, but perhaps I thus became as in- 
explicable to the old man as he had been to me. 

The road lay under chestnuts, and though I saw a 
hamlet or two below me in the vale, and many lone 
houses of the chestnut farmers, it was a very solitary 



124 Travels with a Donkey 

march all afternoon ; and the evening began early under- 
neath the trees. But I heard the voice of a woman sing- 
ing some sad, old, endless ballad not far off. It seemed to 
be about love and a bel amoureux, her handsome sweet- 
heart ; and I wished I could have taken up the strain and 
answered her, as I went on upon my invisible woodland 
way, weaving, like Pippa in the poem, my own thoughts 
with hers. What could I have told her ? Little enough ; 
and yet all the heart requires. How the world gives and 
takes away, and brings sweethearts near, only to separate 
them again into distant and strange lands ; but to love 
is the great amulet which makes the world a garden; 
and ''hope, which comes to all," outwears the accidents 
of life, and reaches with tremulous hand beyond the 
grave and death. Easy to say : yea, but also, by God's 
mercy, both easy and grateful to believe ! 

We struck at last into a wide white highroad, carpeted 
with noiseless dust. The night had come ; the moon had 
been shining for a long while upon the opposite moun- 
tain; when on turning a corner my donkey and I issued 
ourselves into her light. I had emptied out my brandy 
at Florae, for I could bear the stuff no longer, and re- 
placed it with some generous and scented Volnay; and 
now I drank to the moon's sacred majesty upon the road. 
It was but a couple of mouthfuls ; yet I became thence- 
forth unconscious of my limbs, and my blood flowed with 
luxury. Even Modestine w^as inspired by this purified 
nocturnal sunshine, and bestirred her little hoofs as to a 
livelier measure. The road wound and descended swiftly 
among masses of chestnuts. Hot dust rose from our feet 
and flowed away. Our two shadows — mine deformed 
with the knapsack, hers comically bestridden by the pack 



The Country of the Camlsards 125 

— now lay before us clearly outlined on the road, and 
now, as we turned a corner, went off into the ghostly 
distance, and sailed along the mountainlike clouds. 
From time to time a warm wind rustled down the valley, 
and set all the chestnuts dangling their bunches of foliage 
and fruit ; the ear was filled with whispering music, and 
the shadows danced in tune. And next moment the 
breeze had gone by, and in all the valley nothing moved 
except our travelling feet. On the opposite slope, the 
monstrous ribs and gullies of the mountain were faintly 
designed in the moonshine; and high overhead, in some 
lone house, there burned one lighted window, one square 
spark of red in the huge field of sad nocturnal colouring. 
At a certain point, as I went downward, turning many 
acute angles, the moon disappeared behind the hill ; and 
I pursued my way in great darkness, until another turn- 
ing shot me without preparation into St. Germain de 
Calberte. The place was asleep and silent, and buried in 
opaque night. Only from a single open door, some lamp- 
light escaped upon the road to show me I was come 
among men's habitations. The two last gossips of the 
evening, still talking by a garden wall, directed me to the 
inn. The landlady was getting her chicks to bed; the 
fire was already out, and had, not without grumbling, to 
be rekindled; half an hour later, and I must have gone 
supperless to roost. 



The Last Day 

When I awoke (Thursday, 3d October), and, hearing a 
great flourishing of cocks and chuckUng of contented hens, 
betook me to the window of the clean and comfortable 
room where I had slept the night, I looked forth on a 
sunshiny morning in a deep vale of chestnut gardens. 
It was still early, and the cock-crows, and the slanting 
lights, and the long shadows encouraged me to be out 
and look round me. 

St. Germain de Calberte is a great parish nine leagues 
round about. At the period of the wars, and immediately 
before the devastation, it was inhabited by two hundred 
and seventy-five families, of which only nine were Catholic, 
and it took the cure seventeen September days to go from 
house to house on horseback for a census. But the place 
itself, although capital of a canton, is scarce larger than 
a hamlet. It Hes terraced across a steep slope in the 
midst of mighty chestnuts. The Protestant chapel 
stands below upon a shoulder ; in the midst of the town 
is the quaint old Catholic church. 

It was here that poor Du Chayla, the Christian martyr, 
kept his library and held a court of missionaries ; here he 
had built his tomb, thinking to lie among a grateful popu- 
lation whom he had redeemed from error; 'and hither 
on the morrow of his death they brought the body,-pierced 
with two-and-fifty wounds, to be interred. Clad in his 
priestly robes, he was laid out in state in the church. 

126 



The Country of the Camisards 127 

The cure, taking his text from Second Samuel, twentieth 
chapter and twelfth verse, ''And Amasa wallowed in 
his blood in the highway," preached a rousing sermon, 
and exhorted his brethren to die each at his post, like 
their unhappy and illustrious superior. In the midst of 
this eloquence there came a breeze that Spirit Seguier 
was near at hand ; and behold ! all the assembly took to 
their horses' heels, some east, some west, and the cure 
himself as far as Alais. 

Strange was the position of this little Catholic metrop- 
olis, a thimbleful of Rome, in such a wild and contrary 
neighbourhood. On the one hand, the legion of Salomon 
overlooked it from Cassagnas ; on the other, it was cut 
off from assistance by the legion of Roland at Mialet. 
The ciire, Louvrelenil, although he took a panic at the 
archpriest's funeral, and so hurriedly decamped to Alais, 
stood well by his isolated pulpit, and thence uttered ful- 
minations against the crimes of the Protestants. Salo- 
mon besieged the village for an hour and a half, but was 
beat back. The militiamen, on guard before the cure^s 
door, could be heard, in the black hours, singing Protestant 
psalms and holding friendly talk with the insurgents. 
And in the morning, although not a shot had been fired, 
there would not be a round of powder in their flasks. 
Where was it gone? All handed over to the Camisards 
for a consideration. Untrusty guardians for an isolated 
priest ! 

That these continual stirs were once busy in St. Ger- 
main de Calberte, the imagination with difficulty re- 
ceives; all is now so quiet, the pulse of human life now 
beats so low and still in this hamlet of the mountains. 
Boys followed me a great way off, like a timid sort of 



128 Travels with a Donkey 

lion-hunters ; and people turned round to have a second 
look, or came out of their houses, as I went by. My 
passage was the first event, you would have fancied, since 
the Camisards. There was nothing rude or forward in 
this observation; it was but a pleased and wondering 
scrutiny, like that of oxen or the human infant; yet it 
wearied my spirits, and soon drove me from the street. 

I took refuge on the terraces, which are here greenly 
carpeted with sward, and tried to imitate with a pencil 
the inimitable attitudes of the chestnuts as they bear up 
their canopy of leaves. Ever and again a little wind 
went by, and the nuts dropped all around me, with a 
light and dull sound, upon the sward. The noise was as 
of a thin fall of great hailstones ; but there went with it a 
cheerful human sentiment of an approaching harvest 
and farmers rejoicing in their gains. Looking up, I 
could see the brown nut peering through the husk, which 
was already gaping ; and between the stems the eye em- 
braced an amphitheatre of hill, sunlit and green with 
leaves. 

I have not often enjoyed a place more deeply. I 
moved in an atmosphere of pleasure, and felt light and 
quiet and content. But perhaps it was not the place 
alone that so disposed my spirit. Perhaps some one was 
thinking of me in another country; or perhaps some 
thought of my own had come and gone unnoticed, and 
yet done me good. For some thoughts, which sure would 
be the most beautiful, vanish before we can rightly scan 
their features ; as though a god, travelling by our green 
highways, should but ope the door, give one smiling look 
into the house, and go again for ever. Was it Apollo, or 
Mercury, or Love with folded wings? Who. shall say? 



The Country of the Camisards 129 

But we go the lighter about our business, and feel peace 
and pleasure in our hearts. 

I dined with a pair of Catholics. They agreed in the 
condemnation of a young man, a Catholic, who had 
married a Protestant girl and gone over to the religion 
of his wife. A Protestant born they could understand 
and respect ; indeed, they seemed to be of the mind of 
an old Catholic woman, who told me that same day 
there was no difference between the two sects, save that 
"wrong was more wrong for the Catholic," who had more 
light and guidance; but this of a man's desertion filled 
them with contempt. 

"It is a bad idea for a man to change," said one. 

It may have been accidental, but you see how this 
phrase pursued me; and for myself, I believe it is the 
current philosophy in these parts. I have some diffi- 
culty in imagining a better. It's not only a great flight 
of confidence for a man to change his creed and go out 
of his family for heaven's sake ; but the odds are — nay 
and the hope is — that, with all this great transition in 
the eyes of man, he has not changed himself a hair's- 
breadth to the eyes of God. Honour to those who do 
so, for the wrench is sore. But it argues something 
narrow, whether of strength or weakness, whether of the 
prophet or the fool, in those who can take a sufficient 
interest in such infinitesimal and human operations, or 
who can quit a friendship for a doubtful process of the 
mind. And I think I should not leave my old creed for 
another, changing only words for other words; but by 
some brave reading, embrace it in spirit and truth, and 
find wrong as wrong for me as for the best of other com- 
munions. 



130 Travels with a Donkey 

The phylloxera was in the neighbourhood ; and instead 
of wine we drank at dinner a more economical juice of 
the grape — la Parisienne, they call it. It is made by 
putting the fruit whole into a cask with water; one by 
one the berries ferment and burst ; what is drunk during 
the day is supplied at night in water; so, with ever an- 
other pitcher from the well, and ever another grape ex- 
ploding and giving out its strength, one cask of Parisienne 
may last a family till spring. It is, as the reader will 
anticipate, a feeble beverage, but very pleasant to the 
taste. 

What with dinner and coffee, it was long past three 
before I left St. Germain de Calberte. I went down 
beside the Gardon of Mialet, a great glaring watercourse 
devoid of water, and through St. Etienne de Vallee Fran- 
faise, or Val Francesque, as they used to call it; and 
towards evening began to ascend the hill of St. Pierre. 
It was a long and. steep ascent. Behind me an empty 
carriage returning to St. Jean du Gard kept hard upon 
my tracks, and near the summit overtook me. The 
driver, like the rest of the world, was sure I was a pedlar ; 
but, unlike others, he was sure of what I had to sell. He 
had noticed the blue wool which hung out of my pack 
at either end ; and from this he had decided, beyond my 
power to alter his decision, that I dealt in blue- wool 
collars, such as decorate the neck of the French draught- 
horse. 

I had hurried to the topmost powers of Modestine, for 
I dearly desired to see the view upon the other side before 
the day .had faded. But it was night when I reached the 
summit ; the moon was riding high and clear ; and only 
a few grey streaks of twilight lingered in the west. A 



The Country of the Camisards 131 

yawning valley, gulfed in blackness, lay like a hole in 
created Nature at my feet ; but the outline of the hills 
was sharp against the sky. There was Mount Aigoal, 
the stronghold of Castanet. And Castanet, not only as 
an active undertaking leader, deserves some mention 
among Camisards ; for there is a spray of rose among his 
laurel; and he showed how, even in a public tragedy, 
love will have its way. In the high tide of war he married, 
in his mountain citadel, a young and pretty lass called 
Mariette. There were great rejoicings; and the bride- 
groom released five-and-twenty prisoners in honour of the 
glad event. Seven months afterwards Mariette, the 
Princess of the Cevennes, as they called her in derision, 
fell into the hands of the authorities, where it was like 
to have gone hard with her. But Castanet was a man of 
execution, and loved his wife. He fell on Valleraugue, 
and got a lady there for a hostage ; and for the first and 
last time in that war there was an exchange of prisoners. 
Their daughter, pledge of some starry night upon Mount 
Aigoal, has left descendants to this day. 

Modestine and I — it was our last meal together — 
had a snack upon the top of St. Pierre, I on a heap of 
stones, she standing by me in the moonlight and deco- 
rously eating bread out of my hand. The poor brute 
would eat more heartily in this manner; for she had a 
sort of affection for me, which I was soon to betray. 

It was a long descent upon St. Jean du Gard, and we 
met no one but a carter, visible afar off by the glint of 
the moon on his extinguished lantern. 

Before ten o'clock we had got in and were at supper ; 
fifteen miles and a stiff hill in little beyond six hours ! 



Farewell, Modestlne • 

On examination, on the morning of October 4th, Mo- 
destine was pronounced unfit for travel. She would 
need at least two days' repose according to the ostler; 
but I was now eager to reach Alais for my letters ; and, 
being in a civilised country of stage-coaches, I determined 
to sell my lady-friend and be off by the diligence that 
afternoon. Our yesterday's march, with the testimony 
of the driver who had pursued us up the long hill of St. 
Pierre, spread a favourable notion of my donkey's capa- 
bilities. Intending purchasers were aware of an un- 
rivalled opportunity. Before ten I had an offer of twenty- 
five francs; and before noon, after a desperate engage- 
ment, I sold her, saddle and all, for five-and-thirty. 
The pecuniary gain is not obvious, but I had bought 
freedom into the bargain. 

St. Jean du Gard is a large place and largely Protestant. 
The maire, a Protestant, asked me to help him in a small 
matter which is itself characteristic of the country. The 
young women of the Cevennes profit by the common 
religion and the difference of the language to go largely 
as governesses into England ; and here was one, a native 
of Mialet, struggling with English circulars from two 
different agencies in London. I gave what help I could ; 
and volunteered some advice, which struck me as being 
excellent. 

One thing more I note. The phylloxera has ravaged 
the vineyards in this neighbourhood ; and in the early 

132 



The Country of the Camisards 133 

morning, under some chestnuts by the river, I found a 
party of men working with a cider-press. I could not 
at first make out what they were after, and asked one 
fellow to explain. 

"Making cider," he said. "Out, c^est comme qa. 
Comme dans le nordT^ 

There was a ring of sarcasm in his voice ; the country 
was going to the devil. 

It was not until I was fairly seated by the driver, and 
rattling through a rocky valley with dwarf olives, that 
I became aware of my bereavement. I had lost Modes- 
tine. Up to that moment I had thought I hated her; 
but now she was gone, 

''And, O, 
The difference to me ! " 

For twelve days we had been fast companions ; we 
had travelled upwards of a hundred and twenty miles, 
crossed several respectable ridges, and jogged along with 
our six legs by many a rocky and many a boggy by-road. 
After the first day, although sometimes I was hurt and 
distant in manner, I still kept my patience ; and as for 
her, poor soul ! she had come to regard me as a god. 
She loved to eat out of my hand. She was patient, ele- 
gant in form, the colour of an ideal mouse, and inimitably 
small. Her fai^.lts were those of her race and sex ; her 
virtues were her own. Farewell, and if for ever 

Father Adam wept when he sold her to me; after I 
had sold her in my turn, I was tempted to follow his 
example ; and being alone with a stage-driver and four 
or five agreeable young men, I did not hesitate to yield 
to my emotion. 



NOTES 

Page iv. Sidney Colvin : An English essayist and critic. He 
was one of Stevenson's intimate friends, and his literary editor. 
John Bunyan : the author of Pilgrim's Progress, a book which Ste- 
venson knew intimately. See Stevenson's essay, Books which have 
influenced me. 

Page v. Antigone : a tragedy by Sophocles, a Greek dramatist 
of the fourth century B.C. Job : See J oh, xxxix, 5. 

Page 1. Velay: an ancient territory in southwestern France. 
Le Monastier : for a fuller description of this highland village, see 
Stevenson's A Mountain Town in France, an essay which was origi- 
nally intended as the opening chapter of Travels with a Donkey. 
Le -Puy : the ancient capital of Velay ; one of the most picturesque 
towns in Europe. Legitimists : supporters of the elder Bourbon 
line of Louis XIV to the throne of France. Orleanists : supporters 
of the junior line of the younger brother of Louis XIV, the Duke of 
Orleans. Imperialists : supporters of the son of Louis Napoleon. 
Republicans : opposed to monarchy and empire ; supporters of the 
republic established after the Franco-Prussian War. Cevennes: a 
mountain chain in southern France. 

Page 4. Modestine : the name playfully suggests the modesty 
and the small size of the beast. 

Page 5. revolver: "It was of an antiquated pattern, uncertain 
in its mechanism, and more likely to be a menace than a protection 
to its owner." — Mrs. Stevenson. spencer: a knitted coat or 
jacket similar to a buttoned sweater. Beaujolais : a local wine 
named from the district which produced it. 

Page 6. vaticinations : " prophecies," " predictions*" Chris- 
tian : the hero of Pilgrim's Progress. 

Page 7. as an ox goeth to the slaughter : cf. Proverbs, vii, 22. 

Page 9. Alais : a town on the left bank of the Gardon. " Et 
vous marchez comme 5a! " : " And you walk like that! " 

135 



136 Travels with a Donkey 

Page 10. My deus ex machina : literally, " A god [let down] from 
a machine." Descriptive of an ancient stage device employed for 
solving abruptly a dramatic difficulty in Greek tragedy. Here the 
peasant has helped Stevenson in time of need. Sabbath : the 
Scotch Presbyterians held to a strict observance of Sunday. ascetic 
feast : a felicitous allusion to cold Sunday dinner. 

Page 11. Homer's Cyclops :. man-monsters who dwelt in caves 
on the crests of hills. See Odyssey, Book IX. like a sucking- 
dove : cf. to Bottom in Shakespeare's Midsummer Nighfs Dream, 
I, ii, 84. 

Page 12. instantly: "constantly," "every instant." hy- 
pothec : originally, the lien that the Scotch landlord took on the 
crop and chattels of his tenant ; later, colloquially used for " the 
whole lot." 

Page 13. acolytes: those belonging to the four minor orders of 
the clergy ; aspirants for the priesthood. 

Page 16. Mount Mezenc, St. Julien : peaks in the mountains of 
Vivarais. 

Page 18. in a suite : " connected." grouting : " rooting \Vith 
the snout." 

Page 19. amateur : " lover." 

Page 20. dur comme un ane : " tough as a donkey." St. 
Etienne : a large manufacturing town in the department of Loire. 

Page 23. common wolf: in 1765, this wolf suddenly appeared 
in Lozere; it was killed in 1787. Alexander Pope: one of the 
leading English poets of the eighteenth century ; he was very small 
of stature. The exact quotation has not been located. little 
corporal: Napoleon. M. Elie Berthet : a French novelist (1815- 
1891) ; the reference here is to his novel Bete du GSvaudan (Beast 
of Gevaudan). 

Page 24. caryatides : columns of sculptured female figures sup- 
porting the cornices of Greek buildings. " D'ou'st que vous 
venez? " " Where did you come from? " 

Page 28. Herbert Spencer: a celebrated English philosopher 
(1820- 1903) ; founder of the system of thought known as the syn- 
thetic philosophy. 

Page 31. " a little farther lend thy guiding hand " : the exact 
line of Milton's Samson Agonistes is " A little onward lend thy 



( 



Notes 137 



guiding hand." " C'est que, voyez-vous, il fait noir " : " It is, 
you see, dark." " mais — c'est — de la peine": "but — that 
is — some trouble," or " it would cause me trouble." " Ce n'est 
pas ea " : " It is not that." 

Page 32. " C'est vrai, 5a," ..." oui, c'est vrai. Et d'ou 
venez-vous?" "That is true," . . . "yes, that is true. And 
where do you come from? " farceuse : " a roguish jester." 

Page 33. Filia barbara pater barbarior : " a barbarous daughter, 
a more barbarous father." 

Page 34. bambino : the image of the child Jesus, as seen in 
many Catholic churches. 

Page 36. Pastors of the Desert : Histoire des Pasteur s du Desert. 
The history of the Protestant insurrection in France between 1765 
and 1789. Ulysses : after his return home from the Trojan war, he 
was still restless for adventure. See Dante's Inferno, Canto XXVI, 
and Tennyson's Ulysses. 

Page 39. Lady of all Graces : " the Virgin Mary." What went 
ye out for to see? Cf. Mattheic, I'l, 7. Balquidder, Dunrossness : 
remote Protestant parishes in West Perthshire, Scotland, and in 
the Shetland Islands. 

Page 41. JEsop : the traditional author of the most famous col- 
lection of Greek fables. Stevenson, however, had in mind La Fon- 
taine's Le Meunier, son Fits et V Ane {The Miller, his Son, and the 
Donkey). See La Fontaine's Fables, Book iii, No. i. 

Page 42. quintals : one quintal is equal to about 220 pounds. 

Page 45. Matthew Arnold : Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), Eng- 
lish poet and critic. The quotation is from Stanzas from the Grande 
Chartreuse, a description of a Carthusian monastery, situated high 
in the Alps. 

Page 47. Our Lady of the Snows : a monastery, named from its 
location in the snow-covered mountains. See also Stevenson's 
poem. Our Lady of the Snows. 

Page 48. Languedocian : from Languedoc, formerly an inde- 
pendent kingdom, now southern France, the home of the most 
famous poets of Mediaeval France. Wordsworth : WiUiam Words- 
worth (1770-1850). The quotation which follows is from the sonnet 
beginning, " Proud were ye mountains when in time of old." Trap- 
pist: an especially austere order; one of the branches of the Cis- 



138 Travels with a Donkey 

tercian monastery of La Trappe in Normandy, Prance. sheets of 
characters : the reference is to the pictures Stevenson, as a boy, used 
to represent characters in his toy theatre. See his, essay, A Penny 
Plain and Two-pence Colored, in Memories and Portraits. 

Page 49. Marco Sadeler : a Dutch engraver of the early seven- 
teenth century, the son of Giles Sadeler, the celebrated engraver. 

Page 50. Dr. Pusey: Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882), a 
leader in the Oxford Movement, which sought to counteract the 
growing liberalism by emphasizing creeds and rites. 

Page 51. the Father Hospitaller: one whose office it was to re- 
ceive and entertain guests. 

Page 54. MM. les retraitants : those who retire from active life 
to the monastery for meditation and prayer, but who do not take 
the vows. the late Pope: Pope Pius IX (d. 1878). Imitation: 
The Imitation of Christ, attributed to Thomas a Kempis, a German 
mystic of the fifteenth century. Life of Elizabeth Seton: Mrs. 
Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton (i 774-1821), founder of the order of 
Sisters of Charity (1809), and first Mother Superior. Cotton 
Mather: a famous Puritan divine (1663-1728). Most often re- 
membered for his persecution of witches and for his Magnalia, an 
ecclesiastical history of New England. everlasting psalm : see 
Revelation, v, 13. " Le temps libre est employe a I'examen de 
conscience, a la confession, a faire de bonnes resolutions " : " The 
free time (leisure) is employed in the examination of the conscience, 
in confession, and in making good resolutions." 

Page 56. breviaries : service books for public and private devo- 
tion, for use in the Roman Catholic church. Waverley novels : 
novels of Sir Walter Scott (i 771-1832). Basil: St. Basil (329- 
379), a father of the Greek church. Hilarion : St. Hilarion (3oo(?)- 
371), a hermit who introduced monasticism into Palestine. 
Raphael: St. Raphael (1614-1693), a Benedictine monk and his- 
torian of Portugal. Pacifique : St. Pacifique (1575-1653), a French 
monk and missionary. Veuillot : Louis Veuillot (1813-1883), a 
French writer of polemical works, who emphasized the extreme doc- 
trines of the Church of Rome. Chateaubriand : Francois Rene 
Auguste, Vicomte de Chateaubriand (1768-1848), a French states- 
man and romancer. Moliere : the stage-name of Jean Baptiste 
Poquelin (162 2-1673), the leading French dramatist. 



Notes 139 

Page 58. lay phalansteries : as used here, the communities of 
artists at Fontainebleau. Cistercian rule : referring especially to 
the laws of silence and to the exclusion of women among the Cis- 
tercian monks. 

Page 60. compline : the last service of the day. Salve Regina : 
" Hail Queen," a hymn to the Virgin Mary, sung after the comphne. 
Page 61. " Que t'as de belles filles, 

Girofle! 
Girofla! 
Que t'as de belles filles, 
L'Amour les comptera! " 

" How many beautiful daughters you have, 
Girofle, Girofla, 
How many beautiful daughters you have, 
Love will count them." 

Page 63. kilted : " tucked-up." 

Page 64. Gambetta's: Leon Gambetta (1838-1882), a promi- 
nent French statesman after the Franco-Prussian War. " Com- 
ment, monsieur? " " How, sir? " " Et vous pretendez mourir 
dans cette espece de croyance?" "And you mean to die in that 
kind of faith? " 

Page 65. my father's face : see Balfour's Life of Stevenson, Vol. 
I, p. 95. Gaetulian lion: the translation of the expression Gaetulus 
leo, which occurs in Horace's Odes, 1, xxiii, 10. 

Page 66. " C'est mon conseil comme ancien militaire," observed 
the Commandant; " et celui de monsieur comme pretre " : " This is 
my advice as an old soldier," observed the Commandant ; " and this 
gentleman's as a priest." " Qui," added the cure, sententiously 
nodding; " comme ancien militaire — et comme pretre " : " Yes," 
added the parish priest, sententiously nodding; "as an old soldier 
and as a priest." grig: " grasshopper " or " cricket." 

Page 67. " a faddling hedonist " : a trifler who seeks pleasure as 
the chief end in Hfe. 

Page 68. " La parole est a vous " : " The word is yours " ; that 
is, " it is for you to give your opinion." 

Page 69. Old Play : the quotation is from Stevenson's own 



140 Travels with a Donkey- 

poems. In thus attributing it to an old play, he is following a 
custom of Sir Walter Scott. 

Page 71. inconsiderable burn: "small stream." "He, bour- 
geois; il est cinq heures! " " Hey, sir; it is five o'clock." 

Page 72. bourree : " a country dance." 

Page 73. feyness : from the old English fey ; " doomed." 

Page 75. "In a more sacred or sequestered bower — nor 
nymph nor faunus haunted " : a paraphrase of the description of 
Eve's bower; see Milton's Paradise Lost, Book IV, 11. 705-708. 

Page 76. arcana : " mysteries." Montaigne : Michel Eyquem 
de Montaigne (i 533-1 592). The celebrated French essayist. The 
quotation which follows is from his essay on Experience. Bastille : 
the Bastile was the state prison of France ; it was destroyed during 
the French Revolution. 

Page 80. caravanserai: " an inn." 

Page 83. W. P. Bannatyne : an assumed name for Stevenson 
himself. 

Page 86. " like stout Cortez when, with eagle eyes, he stared 
on the Pacific " : the quotation is from Keats's sonnet, Ow First 
Looking into Chapman^ s Homer. Pic de Finiels : a mountain 
peak. Montpellier and Cette : the seaport of Montpellier. 

Page 87. Grand Monarch: Louis XIV (1638-1715), king of 
France. Camisards : the French Protestants of the Cevennes, who 
raised an insurrection against the persecutions which followed the 
revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. " the discourse of 
every coffee-house " : coffee-houses were places of entertainment in 
London during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, where 
people gathered not only to eat but also for the purpose of political 
and literary conversation. See Macaulay's History of England, 
Vol. I, Chap, iii, and the Spectator, No. I, 49, 403, 568. Roland : 
Roland Laporte (i675(?)-i705). The leader of the Camisards. 
Castanet: Andre Castanet (1674-1705). A captain of the Cami- 
sards under Roland. 

Page 92. squired: "attended as a squire." patet dea : "ap- 
pears like a goddess." 

Page 93. Archbishop Sharpe : James Sharpe (1613-1679), Arch- 
bishop of St. Andrews, Scotland; murdered by the Scotch Cove- 
nanters when he attempted to force episcopacy upon them. Mar- 



Notes 141 



shal Villars: Claude Louis Hector, Duke of Villars (1653-1732), 
Marshal of France ; he suppressed the insurrection of the Camisards. 

Page 94. Lamoignon de Bavile : a distinguished lawyer and 
Governor of Languedoc (1648-1724). He persecuted the Camisards 
with great cruelty. Francois de Langlade du Chayla : Abbe de 
Chayla (1650 (?)-i702), Archpriest of the Cevennes; he also cruelly 
persecuted the Camisards. pariah : " a menial servant," " a person 
of no social standing." 

Page 95. Scavenger's Daughter : a mediaeval instrument of tor- 
ture ; by means of it the victim was slowly squeezed to death. Baal : 
see I Kings, xviii. 

Page 97. Captain Poul : he commanded a large force of horse 
and foot soldiers in Germany and Hungary, and in the Alps. " Be- 
cause the Spirit of the Lord is with me " : see Liike, iv, 18. 

Page 98. Killiecrankie : a pass in Perthshire, Scotland, where, 
in 1689, Claverhouse fell. 

Page 101. Antony Watteau : a French genre painter (1684-1721), 
who was especially noted for his representation of shepherd life, 
rustic festivals, etc. • 

Page 103. " C'est bien " : " That's good." 

Page 104. " Connaissez-vous le Seigneur?" "Do you know 
the Lord?" ''Many are called," . . . "and few chosen": see 
Matthew., xx, 16, and xxii, 14. 

Page 105. Moravians : a religious sect which traces its origin 
to John Huss ; it began in Bohemia and Moravia, and later scattered 
to Great Britain, Germany, and the United States. Derbists: 
The founder was John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), a clergyman 
of the Church of England ; the sect aimed at one universal Christian 
brotherhood. Plymouth Brother : also called Derbist. 

Page 106. Christian and Faithful: see Bunyan's Pilgrini's 
Progress, Part I, Chap. xi. 

Page 107. horrific : a country whose wildness causes the feeling 
of horror. Byron : George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788- 18 24). For 
his love of wild scenery see his description of the AIds in Childe 
Harold, Book III. 

Page 109. subprefecture : the subdivision of a department in 
France. Mauchline, Cumnock, Carsphairn : these three towns 
are situated in southeastern Scotland, and are associated with the 



142 Travels with a Donkey 

struggles and persecutions of the Covenanters. Prophet Pedenr 
Alexander Peden (i626(?)-i686), the leading preacher of the Scotch 
Covenanters ; he suffered many persecutions. 

Page 110. Black Camisard, "White Camisard : bandits dis- 
tinguished by the color of their uniforms. White Cross : so called 
on account of the white cross sewed on the hat. 

Page 112. dissenter : one who refuses to conform to the Estab- 
lished Church. 

Page 114. a la belle etoile : " in the open air." 

Page 119. house of Rimmon : see 2 Kings, v, 18. Louis XVI : 
king of France from 1774 to 1792. 

Page 120. Bruce: Robert Bruce (1274-1329). The hero of 
Bannockburn, and king of Scotland. Wallace : Sir William Wallace 
(i2 74(?)-i30s), a Scottish hero. See Burns's poem, Scots wha ha'e 
wV Wallace hied. 

Page 121. " Cependant, coucher dehors! " " But to sleep out- 
of-doors." 

Page 122. Sir Cloudesley Shovel: a British admiral (1650- 
1707), who, at the time referred to, was commander of a fleet in the 
Mediterranean. 

Page 123. Rip van Winkle : see Irving's Sketch Book. 

Page 124. Pippa : Pippa Passes, a dramatic poem by Robert 
Browning. Volnay : red Burgundy wine, produced in the district 
of Volnay. 

Page 128. Apollo : the Olympian god, representing light and life- 
giving power. Mercury : the messenger of the gods, representing 
darkness. Love : Cupid. 

Page 130. phylloxera : an insect which destroys grapevines. 

Page 133. " Oui, c'est comme ga. Comme dans le nord! " 
" Yes, it is like that. Just as in the North." 
" And, O, 
The difference to me! " 
Quoted from Wordsworth's poem, She Dwelt among Untrodden Ways. 



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